IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecp/v48y2009i4p333-341.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Firm Size And Efficiency In The South African Motor Vehicle Industry

Author

Listed:
  • LILA J. TRUETT
  • DALE B. TRUETT

Abstract

The South African motor vehicle industry has historically been considered a critical industry in the South African economy and the target of numerous government policies designed to protect it and/or increase its international competitiveness. This study examines the cost performance of firms in this industry according to their size, using data categorised by output level. The results are consistent with statistically significant economies of scale at the lowest output levels and a cost inefficiency averaging from about seven to nine per cent for all firms. The findings also suggest that all else equal, the smallest firms and the largest firms have lower unit costs than mid‐sized firms. While this work suggests that policies that would give incentives for the smallest firms to increase their scale of operations might help to reduce their unit costs, further investigation needs to be done with respect to why firms in the mid‐level size categories appear to be less efficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Lila J. Truett & Dale B. Truett, 2009. "Firm Size And Efficiency In The South African Motor Vehicle Industry," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 333-341, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecp:v:48:y:2009:i:4:p:333-341
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8454.2009.00380.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8454.2009.00380.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-8454.2009.00380.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Justin Barnes, 2000. "Changing lanes: The political economy of the South African automotive value chain," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 401-415.
    2. Vitaliano, Donald F. & Toren, Mark, 1994. "Cost and efficiency in nursing homes: a stochastic frontier approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 281-300, October.
    3. Anthony Black, 2001. "Globalization and restructuring in the South African automotive industry," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 779-796.
    4. Greene, William H., 1980. "Maximum likelihood estimation of econometric frontier functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 27-56, May.
    5. Justin Barnes & Raphael Kaplinsky, 2000. "Globalization and the Death of the Local Firm? The Automobile Components Sector in South Africa," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(9), pages 797-812.
    6. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    7. Kumbhakar,Subal C. & Lovell,C. A. Knox, 2003. "Stochastic Frontier Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521666633, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arpita Ghose & Chandrima Chakraborti, 2013. "The Relative Role of Imports and Exports in Explaining Productivity of Indian Bio-Pharmaceutical Firms: Evidence from Non Parametric Data Envelopment Analysis," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 48(2), pages 165-201, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mustafa U. Karakaplan & Levent Kutlu, 2019. "School district consolidation policies: endogenous cost inefficiency and saving reversals," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 1729-1768, May.
    2. Horrace, William C. & Rothbart, Michah W. & Yang, Yi, 2022. "Technical efficiency of public middle schools in New York City," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. Somnath Chattopadhyay, 2011. "Earnings efficiency and poverty dominance analysis: a spatial approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2298-2318.
    4. Somnath Chattopadhyay, 2014. "Analysis Of Poverty And Efficiency: An Earnings Frontier Approach," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 133-155, April.
    5. Iparraguirre, José Luis & Ma, Ruosi, 2015. "Efficiency in the provision of social care for older people. A three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis using self-reported quality of life," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 33-46.
    6. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2015. "Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization," OSF Preprints qsf6d, Center for Open Science.
    7. Levent Kutlu & Ran Wang, 2018. "Estimation of cost efficiency without cost data," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 137-151, June.
    8. Di Giorgio, L. & Filippini, M. & Masiero, G., 2015. "Structural and managerial cost differences in nonprofit nursing homes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 289-298.
    9. Cheng, Xian & Wu, Peng & Liao, Stephen Shaoyi & Wang, Xuelian, 2023. "An integrated model for crude oil forecasting: Causality assessment and technical efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    10. Jan Kluge & Sarah Lappöhn & Kerstin Plank, 2023. "Predictors of TFP growth in European countries," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 109-140, February.
    11. Giovanni Calice & Levent Kutlu & Ming Zeng, 2021. "Understanding US firm efficiency and its asset pricing implications," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 803-827, February.
    12. B. E. Bravo‐Ureta & L. Rieger, 1990. "Alternative Production Frontier Methodologies And Dairy Farm Efficiency," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 215-226, May.
    13. Kangile, Rajabu Joseph, 2015. "Efficiency In Production By Smallholder Rice Farmers Under Cooperative Irrigation Schemes In Pwani And Morogoro Regions, Tanzania," Research Theses 265681, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    14. Mehdi Farsi & Aurelio Fetz & Massimo Filippini, 2007. "Benchmarking and Regulation in the Electricity Distribution Sector," CEPE Working paper series 07-54, CEPE Center for Energy Policy and Economics, ETH Zurich.
    15. Edward Ebo ONUMAH & Bernhard BRÜMMER & Gabriele HÖRSTGEN-SCHWARK, 2010. "Productivity of the hired and family labour and determinants of technical inefficiency in Ghana's fish farms," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 56(2), pages 79-88.
    16. Joe Kerkvliet & William Nebesky & Carol Tremblay & Victor Tremblay, 1998. "Efficiency and Technological Change in the U.S. Brewing Industry," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 271-288, November.
    17. Cuéllar Martín, Jaime & Martín-Román, Ángel L. & Moral, Alfonso, 2017. "A composed error model decomposition and spatial analysis of local unemployment," MPRA Paper 79783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Schalk Hans Joachim & Untiedt Gerhard & Lüschow Jörg, 1995. "Technische Effizienz, Wachstum und Konvergenz in den Arbeitsmarktregionen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (West). Eine ökonometrische Analyse für die Verarbeitende Industrie mit einem „Frontier Product," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 214(1), pages 25-49, February.
    19. Morakinyo O. Adetutu, Anthony J. Glass, and Thomas G. Weyman-Jones, 2016. "Economy-wide Estimates of Rebound Effects: Evidence from Panel Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    20. Federico Belotti & Silvio Daidone & Giuseppe Ilardi & Vincenzo Atella, 2013. "Stochastic frontier analysis using Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 13(4), pages 718-758, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausecp:v:48:y:2009:i:4:p:333-341. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0004-900X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.