This paper uses a two-step methodology to examine the relationship between firm inefficiency and the regulatory closure of savings and loans (S&Ls). In the first step, using multiproduct, translog stochastic cost frontiers, the authors estimate inefficiency scores separately for mutual and stock S&Ls operating in the Southwest in 1988. They use the inefficiency scores in second step logit models to identify determinants of regulatory closure. For both mutual and stock S&Ls, the authors find a significant positive relationship between firm inefficiency and regulatory closure. They also find a greater probability of closure for S&Ls in economically depressed states.

The authors develop a new economic framework for the empirical analysis of retail margins. This framework formalizes the role of distribution services as outputs of retail activities. Their main results are the following: the measures of outputs of retail activities identified in the data perform as important and robust determinants of retail margins; variables that purport to capture oligopolistic features of market structure play a limited or no role in determining retail margins; quantity setting and price setting under the assumptions of profit maximization and monopolistic competition are categorically rejected by the data. The data base is information on 49 retail sectors from the 1982 U.S. Census of Retail Trades.

This Monte Carlo study compares the performance of a recently proposed multiprocess mixture model and a more traditional random walk time-varying parameter model in the face of structural shifts and outliers. The mixture model performs well and the latter model performs poorly. This finding is of general interest since investigators often adopt random-walk time-varying parameter models to accommodate potential regime shifts in regression relationships. The findings suggest that the time-varying parameter estimation procedure is unlikely to find abrupt shifts, since the time-varying parameter estimates are contaminated by the outliers and regime shifts.

This paper tests the hypothesis that differential regulations reduced the rate of capital turnover in the electric utility industry, resulting in increased emissions of sulfur dioxide. Based on a sample of forty-four privately owned electric utilities operating over the period 1969-83, the authors' results indicate that (1) regulation increased the age of capital by an average of 3.29 years (24.6 percent); (2) increases in the age of capital have no statistically significant impact on emissions; and (3) in the absence of regulation, emissions would have increased by 3.79 tons per million kWhs (34.6 percent).

This paper extends the work of Boyd (1987) by examining the question of efficiency in Yugoslavian agricultural production using the stochastic production frontier. We find the private sector produces with higher output efficiency than the social sector. Next, we examine regional efficiency differences. Our findings reinforce earlier analysis of the economic impact of regional development policy pursued in Yugoslavia. Less developed republics appeared unable to utilize efficiently the large volume of investment resources allocated from the more developed republics via the central government.

John C. Beghin, C. A. Knox Lovell, Trade and Efficiency Effects of Domestic Content Protection: The Australian Tobacco and Cigarette Industries, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 623-631

Joseph A. Herriges, S. Mostafa Baladi, Douglas W. Caves, Bernard F. Neenan, The Response of Industrial Customers to Electric Rates Based Upon Dynamic Marginal Costs, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 446-454

Hamid Beladi, Munit A. S. Choudhary, Amar K. Parai, Rational and Adaptive Expectations in the Present Value Model of Hyperinflation, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 511-514

, Shawna Grosskopf, C. A. Knox Lovell, Suthathip Yaisawarng, Derivation of Shadow Prices for Undesirable Outputs: A Distance Function Approach, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 75, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 374-380