Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Due to tight public budget constraints, the efficiency of publicly financed universities in Germany is receiving increasing attention in the academic as well as in the public discourse. Against this background we analyze the efficiency of 72 public German universities for the years 1998 to 2003, applying data envelopment and stochastic frontier analysis. Contrary to earlier studies we account for the faculty composition of universities, which proves to be an essential element in the efficiency of higher education. Our main finding is that East German universities have performed better in total factor productivity change compared to those in West Germany. However, when looking at mean efficiency scores over the sample period, West German universities still appear at the top end of relative efficiency outcomes. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Classification: I21, M11

This paper provides a new and systematic characterization of 488 universities (HEIs) coming from 11 European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and UK. Using micro indicators built on the integrated Aquameth database, we characterize the European university landscape according to the following dimensions: history of foundation of universities, dynamics of growth, specialization patterns, subject mix, funding composition, differentiation of the offering profile and productivity.

In this paper, we examine and compare the efficiency of Italian and German public universities and its evolution in the period 2001–2007. This topic is particularly important because of two main reasons: (i) as the universities are funded through public money in both countries, it is necessary to assess whether it has been used efficiently; (ii) the comparison among (similar) European countries can stimulate a benchmarking exercise that can be useful for managerial and policy making purposes. The results show that German universities are more efficient than their Italian counterparts are, using data envelopment analysis. However, the latter are catching up: in the period 2001–2007, their efficiency has improved more rapidly. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Efficiency analyses on higher education institutions have so far primarily focused on the identification of inefficiency and less on the explanation of differences in efficiency performance. We study the impact of institutional factors on the efficiency of 67 public German universities (1998-2003). We present some evidence that university costs and outputs are correlated with institutional settings such as the university management structure. Furthermore, econometric evidence from a single-stage stochastic frontier model (based on a cost function) suggests that universities located in states with a comparatively liberal legal framework are more efficient than those universities operating under more restrictive state regulation.