productivity (Q43384)

Levels and changes of productivity and profitability are measured with various indices. The package contains the multiplicatively complete Färe-Primont, Fisher, Hicks-Moorsteen, Laspeyres, Lowe, and Paasche indices, as well as the classic Malmquist productivity index. Färe-Primont and Lowe indices verify the transitivity property and can therefore be used for multilateral or multitemporal comparison. Fisher, Hicks-Moorsteen, Laspeyres, Malmquist, and Paasche indices are not transitive and are only to be used for binary comparison. All indices can also be decomposed into different components, providing insightful information on the sources of productivity and profitability changes. In the use of Malmquist productivity index, the technological change index can be further decomposed into bias technological change components. The package also allows to prohibit technological regression (negative technological change). In the case of the Fisher, Hicks-Moorsteen, Laspeyres, Paasche and the transitive Färe-Primont and Lowe indices, it is furthermore possible to rule out technological change. Deflated shadow prices can also be obtained. Besides, the package allows parallel computing as an option, depending on the user's computer configuration. All computations are carried out with the nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and several assumptions regarding returns to scale are available. All DEA linear programs are implemented using 'lp_solve'.