Università della Svizzera italiana

Unobserved heterogeneity and international benchmarking in public transport

Cullmann, Astrid ; Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo

We analyze the technical efficiency of German and Swiss urban public transport companies by means of SFA. In transport networks we might face different network structures or complexities, not observed, but influencing the production process. The unobserved factors are typically modeled as separable factors. However, we argue that the entire production process is organized around different network...

Università della Svizzera italiana

An empirical analysis of child care demand in Switzerland

Banfi, Silvia ; Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Annals of public and cooperative economics, 2009, vol. 80, no. 1, p. 37-66

This paper analyzes the demand of Swiss families for child care facilities. A choice experiment is used to study the effects of the facilities’ characteristics as well as socio-economic factors on the selected child care mode. The experimental data are analyzed using a discrete choice model with multinomial logit specification. The results suggest that the demand for extra-familial day care...

Università della Svizzera italiana

The temporal variation of cost-efficiency in Switzerland’s hospitals : an application of mixed models

Farsi, Mehdi

In: Journal of Productivity Analysis, 2008, p. -

This paper uses a mixed effects model to examine the temporal variation of cost efficiency in Switzerland’s general hospitals. The variations in total costs, the number of empty beds and the length of hospital stays are analyzed using financial data from a sample of 168 hospitals operating from 1998 to 2003, as well as hospitalization records disaggregated to Diagnosis Related Groups....

Università della Svizzera italiana

Economies of scale and efficiency measurement in Switzerland’s nursing homes

Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo ; Lunati, Diego

This paper examines the cost efficiency in the nursing home industry, an issue of concern to Swiss policy makers because of the explosive growth of national expenditure on elderly care and the aging of the population. A stochastic cost frontier model with a translog function has been applied to a balanced panel data of 1780 observations from 356 nursing homes operating over five years (1998-2002)...

Università della Svizzera italiana

The temporal variation of cost-efficiency in Switzerland’s hospitals : an application of mixed models

Farsi, Mehdi

This paper examines the temporal variation of cost efficiency in Switzerland’s general hospitals. The variation of total costs and the number of empty beds has been analyzed using a sample of 168 hospitals operating from 1998 to 2003. In addition more than 100,000 observations form the inpatient data disaggregated to DRG categories have been used to analyze the variations in the length of...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Cost efficiency in the Swiss gas distribution sector

Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo ; Kuenzle, Michael

In: Energy Economics, 2007, vol. 29, no. 1, p. 64-78

This paper studies the cost structure of gas distribution utilities in Switzerland. Three stochastic frontier models are applied to a panel of 26 companies operating from 1996 to 2000. Efficiency is assumed to be constant over time. The analysis highlights the importance of output characteristics such as customer density and network size. The results suggest that the utilities could slightly...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Effects of ownership, subsidization and teaching activities on hospital costs in Switzerland

Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo

This paper explores the cost structure of Swiss hospitals, focusing on differences due to teaching activities and those across different ownership and subsidization types. A stochastic total cost frontier with a Cobb-Douglas functional form has been estimated for a panel of 150 general hospitals over the six-year period from 1998 and 2003. Inpatient cases adjusted by DRG cost weights and...

Università della Svizzera italiana

A statistical analysis of pain relief after surgical operations

Farsi, Mehdi ; Gitto, Lara

Adequate and timely application of analgesics after surgical operations is important from both clinical and economic perspectives. Administering pain relief measures requires information about development of post-operative pain and the effect of analgesics. Such information can be obtained from studying patients’ perception of pain in different periods after the operation. This paper applies an...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Estimating the out-of-hospital mortality rate using patient discharge data

Farsi, Mehdi ; Ridder, Geert

This paper is a case study of the use of public use administrative data for the estimation of empirical relations when key dependent variables are not available in the data. It is shown that the out-of-hospital mortality rates can be identified using the patient discharge data without post-discharge death records. Using data on the lengths of hospitalizations and out-of-hospital spells, the...

Università della Svizzera italiana

An empirical analysis of child care demand in Switzerland

Banfi, Silvia ; Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo

This paper analyses the demand of Swiss families for child care facilities. A choice experiment has been used to study the effects of the facilities’ characteristics as well as socioeconomic factors on the selected child care mode. The experimental data have been analysed using a discrete choice model with multinomial logit specification. The results suggest that the stated demand for...