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Explaining firms efficiency in the Ivorian manufacturing sector: a robust nonparametric approach

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Abstract

In this paper, we provide an analysis of Côte d’Ivoire firms performances and study the impact of qualitative external environmental factors on firm efficiencies. We adapt the one-step nonparametric robust methodology of Daraio and Simar 2005 to take in account qualitative environmental factors and we also compare the differences of behavior among two sub groups of firms characterized by different levels of technology. The sensitivity of our conclusions to environmental factors is analyzed using a bootstrapped test. We also check the robustness of our results upon time on two different years of observations.

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Notes

  1. Note that the RPED program did not made any survey in the country since 1995, mainly because of the political instability. A new program, again financed by the World Bank, is in process, but no data are available at the moment.

  2. Inequalities involving vectors are defined on an element-by-element basis, e.g. for any \({\left( x,x^{\prime }\right)' \in {\mathbb{R}} _{+}^{2p}}\) we write \(x^{\prime }\geq x\) if the elements of \(x^{\prime }\) are not smaller than the corresponding elements of x.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Leopold Simar and Jan Johannes for stimulating conversations, suggestions and advices. We also thank three anonymous referees and an associate editor for helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Brittany, IREA, Brittany, France

    Nolwenn Roudaut

  2. Toulouse Business School and Toulouse School of Economics, Universite de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Anne Vanhems

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  1. Nolwenn Roudaut
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  2. Anne Vanhems
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Correspondence to Anne Vanhems.

Appendix: Empirical study of Ivory Coast Firms efficiency on 1994 database

Appendix: Empirical study of Ivory Coast Firms efficiency on 1994 database

See Tables 5, 6, and 7 and Figs. 5, 6, and 7.

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Roudaut, N., Vanhems, A. Explaining firms efficiency in the Ivorian manufacturing sector: a robust nonparametric approach. J Prod Anal 37, 155–169 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11123-011-0227-1

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