Philip Andrew Stevens

Frontier Technology and Absorptive Capacity: Evidence from OECD Manufacturing Industries

In this paper, we examine the three facets of technology: its creation, dispersion and absorption. We investigate whether differences in absorptive capacity help to explain cross‐country differences in the level of productivity. We utilize stochastic frontier analysis to investigate two potential sources of this inefficiency – differences in human capital and R&D – for nine industries in 12 Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries over the period 1973–91. We find that inefficiency in production does indeed exist and it depends upon the level of human capital of the countrys workforce. Evidence that the amount of R&D an industry undertakes is also important is less robust.

A Stochastic Frontier Analysis of English and Welsh Universities

Abstract With imperfect markets for the services of the higher education sector, it is important to assess the effectiveness of institutions. Previous studies have analysed the costs of universities but few their efficiency. In this paper, we examine the costs and efficiency of English and Welsh universities as suppliers of teaching and research using the method of stochastic frontier analysis on a panel of 80 institutions over four years. We also investigate the impact of staff and student characteristics on inefficiency.

Education and Economic Growth

This paper provides a survey of work on the link between education and economic growth.It shows that data from the early 20th century are coherent with conclusions about education and economic growth derived from the much more recent past. It also presents an analysis of the role of education in facilitating the use of best-practice technology. It is to be published in the International Handbook on the Economics of Education edited by G and J. Johnes and published by Edward Elgar.

The specification of the aggregate production function in the presence of inefficiency

Abstract In this paper we consider the impact of the specification of production technology on technical efficiency. We reject the Cobb-Douglas specification of aggregate production in favour of a more general translog form. However, the effect of functional form on the measured efficiency terms is actually quite small. Both of these results are robust to the adjustment of labour to account for years of schooling.

Assessing the Performance of Local Government

We consider the measurement of performance in the public sector in general, focussing on local government and the provision of library services by English local authorities in particular. We will consider two methodologies that assess the performance of local authorities in terms of the efficiency with which they provide services and consider methods that allow us to account for exogenous influences on performance, such as the socio-economic profile of the population served by the authority. We find that although both methods’ results appear similar, the implications for potential cost savings vary widely. Omitting to account for background factors leads to an overstatement of the level of inefficiency and hence the scope for reducing expenditure.

A New Approach To Measuring Health System Output and Productivity

This paper considers methods to measure output and productivity in the delivery of health services, with an application to NHS hospital sector. It first develops a theoretical framework for measuring quality adjusted outputs and then considers how this might be implemented given available data. Measures of input use are discussed and productivity growth estimates are presented for the period 1998/9-2003/4. The paper concludes that available data are unlikely fully to capture quality improvements.

Metrics, Targets and Performance

The setting and use of targets in the public sector has generated a growing amount of interest in the UK. This has occurred at a time when more analysts and policymakers are grasping the nettle of measuring performance in and of the public sector. We outline a typology of performance indicators and a set of desiderata. We compare the outcome of a performance management system - star ratings for acute hospital trusts in England - with a productivity measure analogous to those used in the analysis of the private sector. We find that the two are almost entirely unrelated. Although this may be the case for entirely proper reasons, it does raise questions as to the appropriateness of such indicators of performance, particularly over the long term.

Academic Salaries in the UK and US

We examine the wages of graduates inside and outside of academe in both the UK and US. We find that in both the UK and the US an average graduate working in the HE sector would earn less over his or her lifetime than graduates working in non-academic sectors. The largest disparity occurs throughout the earlier and middle career period and so if people discount their future earnings, the difference will be even greater than these figures suggest. Academics in the UK earn less than academics in the US at all ages. This difference cannot be explained by differences in observable characteristics such as age, gender or ethnicity. This leads us to conclude that the differences in UK and US academic wages are unlikely to be due to differences in the academics themselves, but rather to differences in labour markets generally and in systems of higher education between the two countries, which suggests that there is a strong pay incentive for academics to migrate from the UK to the US.