Based on the survey of Taiwan’s international tourist hotels during 1997 to 2001, this study applies stochastic frontier approach incorporating inefficiency effects to estimate cost inefficiency of international tourist hotels in Taiwan. Two hypotheses of no inefficiency and no inefficiency effects are rejected by using likelihood-ratio test. These outcomes indicate that the model and assumptions set up in this study are statistically more appropriate. The empirical evidence shows that the average cost inefficiency score during 1997 to 2001 is 1.1468 which suggests that actual cost expenditure is approximately 1.1468 times of minimum cost with fixed outputs. In empirical findings between inefficiency effects and cost inefficiencies, the factors such as diversification of services, competitive circumstances, various types of travelers, belonging to a international hotel chain, and located in the scenic area would improve cost efficiencies of international tourist hotels. However, it would worsen cost efficiencies for international tourist hotels to setting up a branch or branches.

<p>This paper offers to measure efficiency of banks in Sub Saharan Africa and its determining input andout put factors on two fonts. At this purpose, we applied the first font; Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) for assessing efficiency level. The actual and target level of inputs/outputs to foster efficiencyare shown in the results. Secondly, the banks ratio analysis measuring banks performance throughreturns volatility for each bank, asset utilization and provision for bad and doubtful debts over thestudy period are all used as tools for this analysis. Our results suggest that Sub Saharan AfricanBanks are about 98.35% efficient. We are aware that the level of efficiency could be subject to up anddown swing if environmental factors influencing banks efficiency where taken into consideration.Finally, our result (DEA) is more sensitive to loans, other liabilities, other non interest expense,securities and deposit.</p>

This paper offers to measure efficiency of banks in Sub Saharan Africa and its determining input andout put factors on two fonts. At this purpose, we applied the first font; Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) for assessing efficiency level. The actual and target level of inputs/outputs to foster efficiencyare shown in the results. Secondly, the banks ratio analysis measuring banks performance throughreturns volatility for each bank, asset utilization and provision for bad and doubtful debts over thestudy period are all used as tools for this analysis. Our results suggest that Sub Saharan AfricanBanks are about 98.35% efficient. We are aware that the level of efficiency could be subject to up anddown swing if environmental factors influencing banks efficiency where taken into consideration.Finally, our result (DEA) is more sensitive to loans, other liabilities, other non interest expense,securities and deposit.

Since the economic reform was initiated in 1978, the Chinese banking sector has undergone significant changes, particularly during the period under our investigation. This is primarily induced by the WTO entry in 2001, which brought in to full openness the financial market in China. The ultimate objective of the recent banking reform is to promote competition and efficiency as a way of improving the overall competitiveness and banking performance, in order to cope with challenges from foreign competitors. With the purpose of examining whether the recent banking reform is effective in achieving the targets as well as suggesting future policy directions, this study investigates market competition, cost efficiency and profitability in the Chinese banking industry over those critical years (1997-2006) before and after the WTO entry. We first employ both structural (the SCP) and non-structural (the Panzar-Rosse) approach to evaluate market competition. Then we estimate cost efficiency for Chinese banks under the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA). Finally, we assess the relationship between profitability and market structure under the structure-performance hypothesis and the efficient-structure hypothesis. Our findings show that Chinese banking market become less concentrated and more competitive since the WTO entry. Chinese banks improve their cost efficiencies, with state-owned banks are the least efficient while joint equity banks are the most efficient. The explanation for the relationship between profitability and market structure is quite mixed. The acceptance of which hypothesis depends on which dependent variable is used.

中國大陸歷經近三十年的努力，經濟發展快速，經濟實力大為提升，成為世界經濟中不可忽視的力量。自2002年中國加入WTO後，與世界經貿關係更為密切，為因應全球經貿的趨勢，外資企業將擴大進軍中國。從微觀及宏觀經濟角度來看，外資的引進對中國國有企業來說，必定受到程度上的競爭衝擊，但外資對中國經濟的生產技術、產業提升發揮正面積極效果，既能夠刺激國有企業的變革、提昇產品品質、擴大國內消費需求。 本文利用2001-2005年中國30個省、市與直轄市的官方統計資料，運用隨機邊界法（stochastic frontier production function）估計中國本資、港澳台資及外資企業的生產效率。 最主要的研究發現為，2001至2005年，投資於中國大陸的港澳台資與外資企業的投資績效均優於本資企業，且港澳台資與外資企業的投資效率值相近，而本資企業則遠低於港澳台資與外資企業。雖然本資企業的效率值在這五年間處於較低的狀態，但與港澳台資、外資企業之間的差距越來越小。在規模報酬方面，本資、港澳台資與外資企業均處於規模報酬遞增階段。 在各省的效率值上，本資、港澳台資與外資企業分佈不盡相同。本資企業在海南、浙江、江蘇、廣東、上海的效率值最高，港澳台資在北京、上海、寧夏、江蘇、河北最高，外資企業則是在上海、北京、陜西、天津、廣東效率值最高。效率值較高的地區分部仍偏重東部沿海地帶。 在影響效率值的因素方面，經濟區位及資本勞動比是影響中國大陸投資效率高低的重點因素。

This thesis adopts a new operational method to measure and investigate the relationship among cost efficiency, market competition and profitability in major Asian economies by using an unbalanced panel data sample of 278 commercial banks during the financial upheaval period of 2005-2012 before and after the global financial crisis. Firstly, we estimate the cost efficiency by employing different stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) models, which include the equity capital to indicate loss-absorbing capacity and risk preference and cross-country differences to be additional environmental variables. It is generally agreed that cross-country differences influence the frontier technology in the international comparison of banks performance. In this case, we implement the international comparison under SFA models with and without incorporating these cross-country heterogeneities. And the empirical results suggest that cross-country differences are significant sources to measure banks cost efficiency and evaluate banks performance. Secondly, we measure the market competition by investigating a range of approaches: the traditional Structure-Conduct-Performance approach, Lerner index, and new empirical industrial organization Panzar-Rosse approach. And we find that the SCP-Lerner approach may fail to identify the strength of competition and may not always unambiguously distinguish between the market power and the efficiency explanations of market concentration. Finally, following the approach of Boone, we measure the intensity of competition in two ways: the profit elasticity and the relative profit difference (calculated by cost efficiency score and shadow return on equity capital). Then we implement a quadratic quantile regression to compute the integral areas and standard errors for the Boone visual test and Wald test to reflect the relative intensity of competition for different competitive regimes over time. Our findings show that competition of banking industries become more intense in 9 Asian economies in the wake of the financial crisis and that two advanced economies (Singapore and Taiwan Province of China) and two remarkable emerging economies (China and India) play the significantly leading role in this intensifying competition process.

隨著經濟的全球化，外人直接投資(foreign direct investment)儼然成為國際間技術擴散的主要途徑，技術外溢也成為外人直接投資發生下的重要議題，尤其利用跨國公司的先進技術促進本國生產力的提升，為開發中國家致力於吸引外人直接投資前來投資的強大動機。其中來自港、澳、台地區的資金佔有相當程度的地位，主要原因為地理位置與中國大陸相近、文化相似度高有很大的關係，但隨著中國大陸實施改革開放政策以來，這種狀況開始有所改變，愈來愈多的大型跨國公司前進中國大陸，觀察這十年流入中國大陸的外人直接投資加總，來自香港、日本、美國和韓國的投資金額分別位居一、二、三和四名，故其造成的後續效應不容小覷。 　　本研究以中華人民共和國國家統計局進行年度工業企業數據庫的1998-2006年間的製造業廠商資料，利用STATA統計軟體進行橫斷面資料分析，再依照中華人民共和國國家統計局工業分類和黃志聰、高安邦和陳子芸(2003)的分類方法，將中國大陸製造業分成輕工業、重工業、化學工業和高科技產業，研究針對外人直接投資進度中國大陸後，衍生出產業技術外溢效果和生產效率的改變進行討論。 / With economic globalization, foreign direct investment has become a major international technology diffusion channels. The spillover effect has become an important topic under foreign direct investment, especially using their advanced technology for productivity upgrade. It is committed to developing countries to attract foreign direct investment a strong incentive to invest. The capital from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan plays an important role in China, mainly because of the highly correlative location, culture and language. The situation has changed accompanied by the implementation of the reform and open policy in China. More and more large multinational enterprises enter China. According to the sum of foreign direct investment of China within a decade, the investment amount from Hong Kong, Japan, America and Korea come in the first, second, third and forth places. Therefore, the upcoming effects cannot be underestimated. In this study, The manufacturers database of the annual industrial enterprises from National Bureau of Statistics of China in the period of 1998 to 2006 is used for cross-sectional data analysis of STATA statistical software. And then according to the classification of National Bureau of Statistics industry and Huang, Kao and Chen (2003), the manufacturing sector in China is divided into light industry, heavy industry, chemical industry and high-tech industries. This study discusses the change of spillover effects and production efficiency after the entering of foreign direct investment in China.

在運動產業逐漸興起的現代，如何評比球隊或運動員的表現好壞，似乎成了現在新興的熱門話題。經濟學上用來評估一家廠商的生產績效優劣，常用的是生產效率分析，生產活動偏離生產邊界的程度代表不效率高低。而球隊比賽的過程就像廠商生產的過程，運用各種投入得到產出。在籃球比賽中，比賽的投入可為球隊的各種技術統計，例如：投籃命中率、抄截、火鍋…等等，產出則是比賽的得分數。因此，在本篇文章中，我們利用經濟學中的生產效率分析來分析球隊的表現優劣，即評估各球隊發揮其潛能的程度。 評估生產效率的模型有很多，由於比賽的性質，有時候統計誤差、運氣也佔了很重要的部份，所以在選擇模型時，選的是隨機邊界效率分析模型（Stochastic Frontier Approach, SFA），除了利用隨機邊界分析模型分析球隊的生產效率，也利用預估的效率值來預測比賽結果排名，並與一般常用來預測結果的模型PROBIT MODEL做比較。我們利用大陸男子甲A籃球聯賽2003-2004和2004-2005賽季作為實證樣本，發現隨機邊界分析模型不只可以用來評估效率，在預測比賽結果排名上，隨機邊界分析模型預測能力則與PROBIT MODEL沒有顯著統計性的差異。 關鍵字：生產效率、隨機邊界分析法、運動產業 / Today, sports industry is getting popular, and how to evaluate the performance of sports teams or players seems also to be a newly hot interesting topic. In economics, production efficiency is often applied to evaluate a firm’s production performance. The inefficiency of a production activity is measured as its deviation from the production frontier. The process of a sport game is similar to a firm’s production process, which transforming various inputs into output(s). For basketball games, inputs can be the various technical statistics, such as field goal rate, steals, blacks, assistant attack, etc. Output(s) can be the scores of the teams got. Therefore, in this paper we use the production efficiency to gauge the performance of sports teams. There are many models measuring production efficiency. In this paper we choose the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) to evaluate the sport team’s efficiency on account of the white noises which exist in the sport game obviously. We also use estimated efficiency scores to predict the outcome ranking of teams, and compare it to that of the PROBIT MODEL which is usually used to predict the outcome of a game. The sample we used are the results of the CBA men’s regular season and playoff season, and we found that the SFA is not only to evaluate efficiency but also can predict the outcome of competition, and its prediction ability is not significantly statistically different to that of PROBIT MODEL. Keywords: Production Efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Approach, Sports Industry

現今世界趨勢已朝向全球整合的方向邁進，隨著科技日新，世界各國跨越地域隔閡，不論是在政治、經濟、科技、文化等各方面往來接觸愈來愈頻繁，中國大陸近年來與世界經貿關係連結更為緊密，同時亦對外開放直接投資，使跨國企業逐漸擴大進軍中國大陸之版圖，享受中國大陸豐沛之廉價勞動力。 然而，開放外人直接投資(Foreign Direct Investment, FDI)勢必為中國大陸相關之產業或總體經濟帶來某種程度之影響，儘管外人直接投資可帶來充沛之資本及先進之技術，但亦有可能加劇國內市場競爭，不利於本土廠商。 本文運用1998-2006 年「中國工業企業統計數據庫」中之電子業廠商，建構追蹤資料模型(Panel Data)，並運用隨機邊界法（stochastic frontier approach）估計中國大陸本資、台港澳資及外資企業生產效率，藉以衡量FDI之外溢效果。根據實證結果我們發現：中國大陸電子業之外人直接投資存在正向外溢效果及正向之技術移轉，顯示FDI之進入將有助於提升中國大陸電子業本土廠商之生產力。此外，我們同時發現FDI集中投資的結果將可能造成外溢效果的減低，除此之外，經濟區位亦是影響外人直接投資所帶來之外溢效果及技術移轉效果之重要因子之一。 / Global integration is the world trend nowadays. With the breakthrough of technology, the geographical barriers no longer exist. It would be much closer with other countries in many fields, such as politics, economics, technology and culture. In recent years, China has a closer economics and trades linkage with the world. As the results of openness to foreign direct investments, more and more multinational enterprises enter to China, expanding their scale and being benefited from the low-cost labor of China. China is benefited from the plentiful capital and advanced technologies of foreign direct investments; however, the openness to FDI might cause the competition which can aggravate in domestic market and hurt the domestic firms. The research uses the data of electronic firms from Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database. We apply panel data model and stochastic frontier approach to estimate the production efficiency of Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Macanese and Other foreign enterprises. According to the empirical results, we discover that there are positive spill-over effects and technology transformation from foreign direct investments in Chinese electronic industry. These results indicate the entry of FDI will promote the productivity of Chinese electronic firms. Beside the positive results, we also discover the negative deduction stem in concentrated investments; furthermore, the spill-over effects and the technology transformation effects are affected by the economic location.

本研究以2000至2012年台灣地區26間人壽保險公司的不平衡縱橫資料，運用網絡隨機邊界分析法將壽險業的生產過程分為行銷與投資兩階段進行效率評估，並利用估計結果計算規模彈性與成本彈性探討台灣壽險業的生產特性，附帶分析跨期技術變動率，最後比較不同分組的壽險公司間經營效率是否存在差異。 實證結果發現壽險公司在行銷活動過程投入較少的內勤員工與較多的固定資產，在投資階段則相反，投入較多的內勤員工與較少的固定資產，與壽險公司實際運作情況相符；此外，投資階段的效率優於第一階段的行銷效率。整體台灣壽險業受到2008年金融風暴影響導致經營效率下降，國內壽險公司在經營效率上優於外商壽險分公司，金控壽險公司生產技術效率優於非金控壽險公司，1993年後成立的新壽險公司生產技術效率平均優於傳統舊壽險公司。 / This paper uses the copula-based network SFA model developed by Huang et al. (2013) to estimate the technical efficiency of Taiwan’s life insurance companies over the period 2000-2012. Under this framework, life insurance companies produce premium income as intermediate product which is one of input factors to produce investment income. The empirical analysis concluded: (a) life insurers use little internal staff in first stage, (b) domestic life insurers have both high technical efficiency and cost efficiency in comparison with foreign life insurers, (c) financial holding life insurers have greater technical efficiency than those of not from financial holding insurers, and (d) new life insurers have higher technical efficiency than old life insurers.