A metafrontier approach for measuring Malmquist productivity index

• DOI: 10.1007/s00181-009-0255-0
• Publication Date: 2009-01-28T07:28:45Z
• Authors: Dong-hyun Oh; Jeong-dong Lee
• Keywords: 8. Economic growth; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; 02 engineering and technology

This paper presents an alternative framework for the decomposition of the Malmquist productivity index by using the concept of a metafrontier. The approach employed allows the calculation of technical efficiency changes, as well as technical changes, for economic agents operating under different technologies. It also enables the computation of the technological gap and its changes for economic agents operating under different technologies. This framework is applied to the analysis of panel data on 58 countries over a period of 31 years from 1970 to 2000. The empirical results show that Asian countries have attempted to move towards the frontier technology and that European countries have taken the lead in the world frontier technology.