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Advanced Semi-parametric and Parametric Methods to Assess Efficiency in the Postal Sector

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Postal and Delivery Innovation in the Digital Economy

Part of the book series: Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy ((TREP,volume 50))

Abstract

This paper uses Two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (“TS DEA”) and Stochastic Frontier models (“SF models”) to compare the efficiency performance of national postal operators. It applies TS DEA and SF methods to the same postal operator dataset, and compares their efficiency rankings and the way they account for the effect of exogenous variables. Section 2 contains a literature review. Section 3 applies two-stage DEA with bootstrapped Tobit regression and SF models to the database used in Pierleoni and Gori (2013). Section 4 concludes. The critical aspect of this paper is limited data availability (77 observations, seven operators for 11 years). This calls for caution in interpreting the results; there is a need for a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis to fully grasp differences in performance between postal operators.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We use the following software: DEA Frontier for DEA and Limdep version 10 for the second stage in TS DEA and for SF.

  2. 2.

    Koop had treated this issue in 1981. Fare et al. (1994) also analyze the non-discretionary variables by what they referred to as ‘sub-vector optimisations’.

  3. 3.

    Kumbhakar and Lovell (2000), Coelli et al. (2005), Kumbhakar and Tsionas (2006), Greene (2008) and Kumbhakar et al. (2012) are reviews of such applications.

  4. 4.

    A flexible rate would distort the data on costs by negatively impacting the operators of countries which have experienced devaluation and positively impacting those operating in currencies with higher exchange rates.

  5. 5.

    As suggested by Banker and Natarajan (2004) and Barnum et al. (2008), it would be useful for further research to apply a significance test to the efficiency scores obtained by the simple and two stage DEA presented in Table 2. This would allow analysing another interesting topic, that is, the relevance of the related ranks.

  6. 6.

    A specification with the mean of the inefficiency term as a function of exogenous determinants did not lead to satisfactory results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FTI Consulting, London, UK

    M. Meschi

  2. University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

    M. R. Pierleoni

  3. University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    S. Gori

Authors
  1. M. Meschi
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  2. M. R. Pierleoni
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  3. S. Gori
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Correspondence to S. Gori .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CRRI Distinguished Professor of Regulatory Economics, Rutgers University, Rutgers Business School, Newark, New Jersey, USA

    Michael A. Crew

  2. Department of Public Policy, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, USA

    Timothy J. Brennan

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Meschi, M., Pierleoni, M.R., Gori, S. (2015). Advanced Semi-parametric and Parametric Methods to Assess Efficiency in the Postal Sector. In: Crew, M., Brennan, T. (eds) Postal and Delivery Innovation in the Digital Economy. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12874-0_16

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