The Generalized Malmquist index and capacity utilization change: an application to the Italian manufacturing, 1989-1994

Several indices of plant capacity utilization based on the concept of best practice frontier have been proposed in the literature (Fare et al. 1992; De Borger and Kerstens, 1998). This paper suggests an alternative measure of capacity utilization change based on Generalized Malmquist index, proposed by Grifell-Tatje' and Lovell in 1998. The advantage of this specification is that it allows the measurement of productivity growth ignoring the nature of scale economies. Afterwards, this index is used to measure capacity change of a panel of Italian firms over the period 1989-94 using Data Envelopment Analysis and then its abilities of explaining the short-run movements of output are assessed.

Is competition really bad news for cooperatives? Some empirical evidence for Italian producers' cooperatives

In this paper, we analyse the nature of the relationship between market power and technical efficiency for producers' cooperatives. More specifically we test two hypotheses: first, we evaluate the extent to which increasing market pressure may help producers' cooperatives to improve technical efficiency to guarantee positive profits; second, we test whether higher technical efficiency induces producers' cooperatives to have a larger market share. These hypotheses are tested on a sample of Italian conventional and cooperative firms for the Wine Production and Processing sector, using both frontier analysis and dynamic panel techniques. The results support the hypothesis that increasing market pressure can affect positively the cooperativeś efficiency, while gains in technical efficiency do not seem to have any impact on the cooperatives' market share. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Public capital and total factor productivity:new evidence from the Italian regions, 1970-98

This paper analyses the relationship between industrial total factor productivity and public capital across the 20 Italian administrative regions. It adds upon the existing literature in a number of ways: it analyses a longer period (1970-98); it allows for the role of human capital accumulation; it tests for the existence of a long-run relationship between total factor productivity and public capital (through previously suggested panel techniques) and for weak exogeneity of public capital; and it assesses the significance of public capital within a non-parametric set-up based on the Free Disposal Hull. The results confirm that public capital has a significant impact on the evolution of total factor productivity, particularly in the Southern regions. This impact is mainly ascribed to the core infrastructures (road and airports, harbours, railroads, water and electricity, telecommunications). Also, core infrastructures are weakly exogenous. © 2005 Regional Studies Association.