IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v176y2023ics0965856423002240.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal leasing and airlines' cost efficiency: A stochastic frontier analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Bourjade, Sylvain
  • Muller-Vibes, Catherine

Abstract

In this paper, we use an original and rich dataset (containing yearly data on 134 airlines worldwide, for the period 2007–2019) to empirically test the cost efficiency gains resulting from airlines’ leasing choices, using a stochastic frontier approach. Our objective is to evaluate whether airlines’ choices of leasing are driven by incentives to reduce cost inefficiency. Our estimation confirms the role of leasing as strategic to improve airlines’ operational efficiency. We also compute airlines’ optimal level of leasing and provide accurate measures of airlines’ economic efficiency. Finally, we show that airlines do not benefit from leasing in the same proportions depending on their ability to have access to capital markets as a funding source, on the extent to which governments own part of the airline’s shares and may act as a guarantee for investors, or on their business model.

Suggested Citation

  • Bourjade, Sylvain & Muller-Vibes, Catherine, 2023. "Optimal leasing and airlines' cost efficiency: A stochastic frontier analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:176:y:2023:i:c:s0965856423002240
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2023.103804
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856423002240
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2023.103804?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandro Gavazza, 2011. "Leasing and Secondary Markets: Theory and Evidence from Commercial Aircraft," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(2), pages 325-377.
    2. Johnson, Justin P & Waldman, Michael, 2003. "Leasing, Lemons, and Buybacks," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 247-265, Summer.
    3. Miller, Merton H & Upton, Charles W, 1976. "Leasing, Buying, and the Cost of Capital Services," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(3), pages 761-786, June.
    4. Gagnepain, Philippe & Marin, Pedro L, 2006. "Regulation and Incentives in European Aviation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(1), pages 229-248, April.
    5. Gritta, Richard & Lippman, Ellen, 2010. "Aircraft Leasing and Its Effect on Air Carriers Debt Burdens: A Comparison Over the Past Several Decades," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 49(3).
    6. Barros, Carlos Pestana & Peypoch, Nicolas, 2009. "An evaluation of European airlines' operational performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 525-533, December.
    7. Kleibergen, Frank & Paap, Richard, 2006. "Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 97-126, July.
    8. Li, Ye & Wang, Yan-zhang & Cui, Qiang, 2015. "Evaluating airline efficiency: An application of Virtual Frontier Network SBM," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-17.
    9. Simeon Djankov & Peter Murrell, 2002. "Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: A Quantitative Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 739-792, September.
    10. Mustafa U. Karakaplan, 2017. "Fitting endogenous stochastic frontier models in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(1), pages 39-55, March.
    11. Igal Hendel & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2002. "The Role of Leasing under Adverse Selection," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 113-143, February.
    12. Bourjade, Sylvain & Huc, Regis & Muller-Vibes, Catherine, 2017. "Leasing and profitability: Empirical evidence from the airline industry," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 30-46.
    13. Vivien Beattie & Alan Goodacre & Sarah Jane Thomson, 2006. "Corporate Financing Decisions: UK Survey Evidence," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(9-10), pages 1402-1434.
    14. Oum, Tae Hoon & Zhang, Anming & Zhang, Yimin, 2000. "Optimal demand for operating lease of aircraft," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 17-29, January.
    15. Titman, Sheridan & Wei, K. C. John & Xie, Feixue, 2004. "Capital Investments and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 677-700, December.
    16. Diewert, Walter E & Wales, Terence J, 1987. "Flexible Functional Forms and Global Curvature Conditions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 43-68, January.
    17. Yan, An, 2006. "Leasing and Debt Financing: Substitutes or Complements?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 709-731, September.
    18. Vivien Beattie & Alan Goodacre & Sarah Jane Thomson, 2006. "Corporate Financing Decisions: UK Survey Evidence," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(9‐10), pages 1402-1434, November.
    19. Kumbhakar, Subal C & Ghosh, Soumendra & McGuckin, J Thomas, 1991. "A Generalized Production Frontier Approach for Estimating Determinants of Inefficiency in U.S. Dairy Farms," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(3), pages 279-286, July.
    20. Ng, Charles K & Seabright, Paul, 2001. "Competition, Privatisation and Productive Efficiency: Evidence from the Airline Industry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 591-619, July.
    21. Mara Faccio, 2006. "Politically Connected Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 369-386, March.
    22. Andrea L. Eisfeldt & Adriano A. Rampini, 2009. "Leasing, Ability to Repossess, and Debt Capacity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 1621-1657, April.
    23. Johnston, Ahren & Ozment, John, 2013. "Economies of scale in the US airline industry," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 95-108.
    24. Thomas W. Gilligan, 2004. "Lemons and Leases in the Used Business Aircraft Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 1157-1186, October.
    25. Gavazza, Alessandro, 2010. "Asset liquidity and financial contracts: Evidence from aircraft leases," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 62-84, January.
    26. Myers, Stewart C & Dill, David A & Bautista, Alberto J, 1976. "Valuation of Financial Lease Contracts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(3), pages 799-819, June.
    27. Reiss, Peter C. & Wolak, Frank A., 2007. "Structural Econometric Modeling: Rationales and Examples from Industrial Organization," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 64, Elsevier.
    28. Lewis, Craig M. & Schallheim, James S., 1992. "Are Debt and Leases Substitutes?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 497-511, December.
    29. Baltagi, Badi H & Griffin, James M & Rich, Daniel P, 1995. "Airline Deregulation: The Cost Pieces of the Puzzle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 36(1), pages 245-260, February.
    30. Justin P. Johnson & Henry S. Schneider & Michael Waldman, 2014. "The Role and Growth of New-Car Leasing: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(3), pages 665-698.
    31. Dalen, Dag Morten & Gomez-Lobo, Andres, 1997. "Estimating cost functions in regulated industries characterized by asymmetric information," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 935-942, April.
    32. Smith, Clifford W, Jr & Wakeman, L MacDonald, 1985. "Determinants of Corporate Leasing Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 895-908, July.
    33. 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.
    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. Zhang, Hui & Zhou, Peng & Sun, Xiumei & Ni, Guanqun, 2024. "Disparities in energy efficiency and its determinants in Chinese cities: From the perspective of heterogeneity," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).

    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. Bourjade, Sylvain & Huc, Regis & Muller-Vibes, Catherine, 2017. "Leasing and profitability: Empirical evidence from the airline industry," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 30-46.
    2. Andrea L. Eisfeldt & Adriano A. Rampini, 2009. "Leasing, Ability to Repossess, and Debt Capacity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 1621-1657, April.
    3. Annamaria Menichini & Maria Grazia Romano, 2018. "Does the Master’s Eye Fatten the Cattle? Maintenance and Care of Collateral under Purchase and Leasing Contracts," CSEF Working Papers 520, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 15 Mar 2021.
    4. Hu, Weiwei & Li, Kai & Xu, Yiming, 2023. "Leasing and the allocation efficiency of finance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Lim, Steve C. & Mann, Steven C. & Mihov, Vassil T., 2017. "Do operating leases expand credit capacity? Evidence from borrowing costs and credit ratings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 100-114.
    6. Elizabeth Devos & Erik Devos & He Li & Desmond Tsang, 2022. "Operating Lease as Alternative Financing for REITs: a Viable Strategy or a Sign of Trouble?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 153-180, August.
    7. Yongqiang Chu, 2020. "Collateral, Ease of Repossession, and Leases: Evidence from Antirecharacterization Laws," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(7), pages 2951-2974, July.
    8. Stefania Cosci & Roberto Guida & Valentina Meliciani, 2015. "Leasing Decisions and Credit Constraints: Empirical Analysis on a Sample of Italian Firms," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 21(2), pages 377-398, March.
    9. Devos, Erik & Rahman, Shofiqur, 2014. "Location and lease intensity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 20-36.
    10. Chemmanur, Thomas & Jiao, Yawen & Yan, An, 2010. "A theory of contractual provisions in leasing," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 116-142, January.
    11. Lin, Jane-Raung & Wang, Chia-Jane & Chou, De-Wei & Chueh, Fei-Chun, 2013. "Financial constraint and the choice between leasing and debt," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 171-182.
    12. Munir, Qaiser & Kok, Sook Ching & Teplova, Tamara & Li, Tongxia, 2017. "Powerful CEOs, debt financing, and leasing in Chinese SMEs: Evidence from threshold model," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 487-503.
    13. Rahman, Shofiqur & Chowdhury, Hasibul, 2023. "Tournament-based incentives and the lease-versus-buy decision," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    14. Anna Białek-Jaworska & Natalia Nehrebecka, 2016. "Determinants of Polish Enterprises' Propensity to Lease," Working Papers 2016-07, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    15. Andrikopoulos, Athanasios & Markellos, Raphael N., 2015. "Dynamic interaction between markets for leasing and selling automobiles," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 260-270.
    16. João Pinto & Luís K. Pacheco, 2014. "The Economics Of Structured Leasing," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 04, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    17. Dilek Bülbül & Felix Noth & Marcel Tyrell, 2014. "Why Do Banks Provide Leasing?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 137-175, October.
    18. Gavazza, Alessandro, 2010. "Asset liquidity and financial contracts: Evidence from aircraft leases," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 62-84, January.
    19. Schallheim, James & Wells, Kyle & Whitby, Ryan J., 2013. "Do leases expand debt capacity?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 368-381.
    20. Jonathan R. Peterson & Henry S. Schneider, 2017. "Beautiful Lemons: Adverse Selection in Durable-Goods Markets with Sorting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(9), pages 3111-3127, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Leasing; Operating Cost; Stochastic Frontier; Airline Industry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • L93 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Air Transportation

    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:eee:transa:v:176:y:2023:i:c:s0965856423002240. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    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.