In this paper, we examine the three facets of technology: its creation, dispersion and absorption. We investigate whether differences in absorptive capacity help to explain cross-country differences in the level of productivity. We utilize stochastic frontier analysis to investigate two potential sources of this inefficiency -differences in human capital and R&D -for nine industries in 12 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries over the period 1973-91. We find that inefficiency in production does indeed exist and it depends upon the level of human capital of the country's workforce. Evidence that the amount of R&D an industry undertakes is also important is less robust.

Broadband access is widely considered to be a productivity-enhancing factor, but there are few firm-level estimates of its benefits. We use a large micro-survey of firms linked to longitudinal firm financial data to determine the impact that broadband access has on firm productivity. Propensity score matching is used to control for factors, including the firm's own lagged productivity, that determine a firm's internet access choice. Instrumental variables estimates are employed as a robustness check. Results indicate that broadband adoption boosts firm productivity by 7-10%; effects are consistent across urban versus rural locations and across high versus low knowledge intensive sectors.

With imperfect markets for the services of the higher education sector, it is important to assess the effectiveness of institutions. Previous studies have analysed the costs of universities but few their efficiency. In this paper, we examine the costs and efficiency of English and Welsh universities as suppliers of teaching and research using the method of stochastic frontier analysis on a panel of 80 institutions over four years. We also investigate the impact of staff and student characteristics on inefficiency.Higher education, efficiency, stochastic frontier analysis,

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We consider the measurement of performance in the public sector in general, focussing on local government and the provision of library services by English local authorities in particular. We will consider two methodologies that assess the performance of local authorities in terms of the efficiency with which they provide services and consider methods that allow us to account for exogenous influences on performance, such as the socio-economic profile of the population served by the authority. We find that although both methods' results appear similar, the implications for potential cost savings vary widely. Omitting to account for background factors leads to an overstatement of the level of inefficiency and hence the scope for reducing expenditure.