Università della Svizzera italiana

Unobserved heterogeneity and efficiency measurement in public transport

Cullmann, Astrid ; Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Journal of transport economics and policy, 2012, vol. 46, no. 1, p. 51-66

Efficiency measurement in public transport requires an adequate account of unobserved network characteristics that are typically modelled as factors separable from the production process. This paper proposes a panel data model that allows for non-separable firm-specific heterogeneity in an input distance function. The proposed model is applied to a sample of German and Swiss urban transit...

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 analysis of cost efficiency in Swiss multi-utilities

Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massino

In: Energy economics, 2009, vol. 31, no. 2, p. 306-315

This study presents an empirical analysis of the cost efficiency of a sample of Swiss multi-utilities operating in the distribution of electricity, natural gas and water. The multi-utilities that operate in different sectors are characterized by a strong unobserved heterogeneity. Therefore the measurement of their performance poses an important challenge for the regulators. The purpose of...

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

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

Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Health economics, 2008, vol. 17, no. 3, p. 335-350

This paper explores the cost structure of Swiss hospitals, focusing on differences due to teaching activities and those related to ownership and subsidization types. A stochastic total cost frontier with a Cobb-Douglas functional form has been estimated for a panel of 148 general hospitals over the six-year period from 1998 to 2003. Inpatient cases adjusted by DRG cost weights and ambulatory...

Università della Svizzera italiana

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

Farsi, Mehdi ; Filippini, Massimo ; Lunati, Diego

In: Swiss journal of economics and statistics, 2008, vol. 144, no. 3, p. 359-378

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

Economies of scale and scope in multi-utilities

Farsi, Mehdi ; Fetz, Aurelio ; Filippini, Massimo

In: Energy journal, 2008, vol. 29, no. 4, p. 123-143

This paper explores the economies of scale and scope in the electricity, gas and water utilities. These issues have a crucial importance in the actual policy debates about unbundling the integrated utilities into separate entities, a policy which has often been supported by the ongoing reforms in the deregulation of network industries. This paper argues that the potential improvements in...

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....