New Directions

The format of this monograph is three essays, which we arrived at after spending a year writing over one hundred pages of what we even­ tually realized was a tedious reworking of old material. So we started over determined to write something new. At first we thought this approach might not work as a coherent mono­ graph, which is why we chose the essay format rather than chapters. As it turns out, there is a common thread-namely the directional distance function, which also gave us our title. As you shall see, the directional distance function includes traditional distance functions and efficiency measures as special cases providing a unifying framework for existing productivity and efficiency measures. It is also flexible enough to open up new areas in productivity and efficiency analysis such as environmen­ tal and aggregation issues. That we did not see this earlier is humbling; a student at a recent conference raised his hand and asked 'Why didn't you start with the directional distance function in the first place? In­ deed. This manuscript is intended to make up for our earlier oversights. This monograph contains papers coauthored with Wen-Fu Lee and Osman Zaim and one paper written by two former students, Hiroyuki Fukuyama and Bill Weber. We thank them for their contributions. An­ other former student, Jim Logan (Logi) read and critiqued the manu­ script for which we are grateful.

Contenu

Efficiency Indicators And Indexes.- The Nerlovian Profit Indicator.- The Revenue Efficiency Indicator.- Cost Efficiency Indicator.- Efficiency Indexes.- From Indicators to Indexes.- Hyperbolic Efficiency.- Remarks on the Literature.- Environmental Performance .- Good and Bad Outputs.- Productivity with Bads.- Environmental Quantity Index.- Shadow Pricing Undesirable Outputs.- Property Rights and Profitability.- New Directions.- Environmental Kuznets Curve.- Remarks on the Literature.- Aggregation Issues.- The Fox Paradox.- Koopmans' Theorem.- Aggregating Indicators Across Firms.- Johansen Aggregation.- Aggregating Farrell Efficiency Indexes.- Luenberger Productivity Indicators.- Aggregation Across Inputs and Outputs.- Aggregation and Decompositions.- Performance in Japanese Banking.- Remarks on the Literature.- Appendix: Axioms Of Production.