Browsing by Author "Díaz, Guillermo"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
A Non-radial DEA index for Peruvian regional competitiveness
(CENTRUM Publishing, 2016) Vincent, Charles; Díaz, Guillermo
In this paper, we propose a method to measure competitiveness performance at the subnational level, with an application to Peruvian regions. For this, we propose a benefit-of-the-doubt composite index that summarizes the information of several indicators that characterize competitiveness. It is based on an optimization approach, using Data Enveloping Analysis (DEA) techniques, so that each indicator is weighted in an endogenous way, and each unit is evaluated in the most favourable light. Our proposed index is a non-radial variant of the typical DEA scores, which avoids the traditional pitfalls of DEA-based composite indexes, such as unreasonable weights. Additionally, we propose a meta-frontier approach in order to compare the competitiveness performances across different periods of evaluation. Our assessments of the Peruvian regions' competitiveness performance improve on the results of traditional DEA methods, which award high marks to regions with very heterogeneous performance (i.e., regions with very high scores in some indicators, and very poor in others). Additionally, the comparison of the performance across time shows a general decrease in the average competitiveness between 2008 to 2014 in the Peruvian regions.
Open Access
Benchmarking the Efficiency of Public Water Companies in Peru: A Conditional DEA Approach
(CENTRUM Publishing, 2015) Díaz, Guillermo
Benchmarking has been suggested as a useful regulatory tool for water companies in both developed and developing countries, specially due to the predominance of public firms in these sectors. However, in order to be effective, the comparison should be about credibly reflecting differences in the firms' performances, rather than capturing differences in their operating contexts. In this paper I apply a conditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) benchmarking technique that specifically controls for these different operating environments. As a result, I find that conditioning on the population density in each firm's area of operation affect the estimated efficiencies in a significant way. The results are consistent with previous findings in other countries (which use different methodologies), and are new in the case of Peru.
Open Access
Regulatory Design and Technical Efficiency: Public Transport in France
(CENTRUM Publishing, 2015) Díaz, Guillermo; Vincent, Charles
Public transport systems are often subject to a close regulatory oversight because of their economic and social impacts. In the case of France, this has led to an institutional design that has involved the participation of private firms in the service provision, and the use of incentive contracts to regulate them, among other characteristics. We study the effect of these institutional features on the efficiency of the firms in the sector. For this, we use nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques to estimate the input usage efficiency, and explore a few potential institutional and regulatory determinants. We apply a conditional DEA approach and fixed effects second stage regressions to control for potentially observed and unobserved sources of heterogeneity across different environments in which the firms operate. Our results point to a differential effect of private and mixed public-private companies. In particular, having the performance of public operators as the benchmark, efficiency is relatively higher for private firms, but lower when the service is delegated to a mixed public-private firm. Furthermore, the effects seem to diverge greatly by contract type when the firm is mixed so that, when the contract is of the cost reimbursement type, performance is lower than the public firm benchmark, while for other contract types there are no statistically significant differences.
Open Access
Who monitors the monitor? Effect of Party Observers on Electoral Outcomes
(CENTRUM Publishing, 2015) Casas, Agustín; Díaz, Guillermo; Trindade, Andre
We ask how monitoring by individuals with preferences regarding the outcome of the supervised task interferes with the task's process: do the monitors' presence biases the results in favor of their own preferences? To do that, we construct a novel dataset from the raw voting records of the 2011 national elections in Argentina. We exploit a natural experiment to show that electoral observers with partisan preferences cause a 1.7% to 7% increase in the vote count of the observers' preferred party. This bias, which appears under various electoral rules, concentrates in municipalities with lower civic capital (Guiso et al. (2011)) and weakens the accountability role of elections.