IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v40y2012i6p712-735.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

General Purpose or Special District Governance? Technical Efficiency versus Rent Dissipation in Airport Finances

Author

Listed:
  • Steven G. Craig
  • James Airola
  • Manzur Tipu

Abstract

This article compares the behavior of special district governments to that of general purpose governments, using as an empirical example the performance of US airports. The authors estimate a modified McFadden symmetric generalized cost function, specified to distinguish technical efficiency and allocative efficiency of airports governed by each institutional form. Using a unique data set on US airports, the authors find that special district governments have technical efficiency that is over 40 percent higher than airports operated by general purpose governments. This advantage, however, is almost entirely dissipated through overpayments to labor and for materials, so that the resulting cost advantage of special district airports is less than 5 percent. The authors interpret these results to suggest that the feedback process between residents and the government institution is centrally important.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven G. Craig & James Airola & Manzur Tipu, 2012. "General Purpose or Special District Governance? Technical Efficiency versus Rent Dissipation in Airport Finances," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(6), pages 712-735, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:40:y:2012:i:6:p:712-735
    DOI: 10.1177/1091142112448415
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1091142112448415
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1091142112448415?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. Gillen, David & Lall, Ashish, 1997. "Developing measures of airport productivity and performance: an application of data envelopment analysis," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 261-273, December.
    2. repec:hrv:faseco:4553034 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Lovell, C A Knox & Sickles, Robin C, 1983. "Testing Efficiency Hypotheses in Joint Production: A Parametric Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(1), pages 51-58, February.
    4. Adler, Nicole & Berechman, Joseph, 2001. "Measuring airport quality from the airlines' viewpoint: an application of data envelopment analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 171-181, July.
    5. Diewert, Walter E & Wales, Terence J, 1987. "Flexible Functional Forms and Global Curvature Conditions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 43-68, January.
    6. Jan K. Brueckner, 2002. "Airport Congestion When Carriers Have Market Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1357-1375, December.
    7. Megan Mullin, 2008. "The Conditional Effect of Specialized Governance on Public Policy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 125-141, January.
    8. Oum, Tae H. & Yan, Jia & Yu, Chunyan, 2008. "Ownership forms matter for airport efficiency: A stochastic frontier investigation of worldwide airports," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 422-435, September.
    9. Fare, Rolf & Knox Lovell, C. A., 1978. "Measuring the technical efficiency of production," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 150-162, October.
    10. Atkinson, Scott E & Cornwell, Christopher, 1994. "Estimation of Output and Input Technical Efficiency Using a Flexible Form and Panel Data," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(1), pages 245-255, February.
    11. Sickles, Robin C. & Good, David & Johnson, Richard L., 1986. "Allocative distortions and the regulatory transition of the U.S. airline industry," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1-2), pages 143-163.
    12. Lau, Lawrence J & Yotopoulos, Pan A, 1971. "A Test for Relative Efficiency and Application to Indian Agriculture," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 94-109, March.
    13. Zhang, Anming & Zhang, Yimin, 2003. "Airport charges and capacity expansion: effects of concessions and privatization," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 54-75, January.
    14. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & Caroline Hoxby, 2004. "Political Jurisdictions in Heterogeneous Communities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 348-396, April.
    15. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    16. Pacheco, R. R. & Fernandes, E., 2003. "Managerial efficiency of Brazilian airports," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 667-680, October.
    17. Fare, R. & Grosskopf, S. & Logan, J., 1985. "The relative performance of publicly-owned and privately-owned electric utilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 89-106, February.
    18. Malcolm Abbott & Su Wu, 2002. "Total Factor Productivity and Efficiency of Australian Airports," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 35(3), pages 244-260, September.
    19. Liesbet, Hooghe & Gary, Marks, 2003. "Unraveling the Central State, but How? Types of Multi-level Governance," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 233-243, May.
    20. Juan Martín & Concepción Román, 2006. "A Benchmarking Analysis of Spanish Commercial Airports. A Comparison Between SMOP and DEA Ranking Methods," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 111-134, June.
    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. Kim, Serena Y., 2020. "Institutional arrangements and airport solar PV," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    2. Yan, Jia & Oum, Tae Hoon, 2014. "The effect of government corruption on the efficiency of US commercial airports," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 119-132.
    3. Kutlu, Levent & McCarthy, Patrick, 2016. "US airport ownership, efficiency, and heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 117-132.
    4. Karanki, Fecri & Bilotkach, Volodymyr, 2024. "The impact of Airport business practices and governance forms on excess capacity," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    5. Karanki, Fecri & Lim, Siew Hoon, 2020. "The effects of use agreements on airport efficiency," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. Liang, Pinghan & Zou, Wei, 2024. "Flying high in the sky: The airports decentralization reform and regional economic development in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(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. Oum, Tae H. & Yan, Jia & Yu, Chunyan, 2008. "Ownership forms matter for airport efficiency: A stochastic frontier investigation of worldwide airports," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 422-435, September.
    2. Abbott, Malcolm, 2015. "Reform and efficiency of New Zealand's airports," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-9.
    3. Voltes-Dorta, Augusto & Pagliari, Romano, 2012. "The impact of recession on airports' cost efficiency," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 211-222.
    4. Adler, Nicole & Liebert, Vanessa & Yazhemsky, Ekaterina, 2013. "Benchmarking airports from a managerial perspective," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 442-458.
    5. Curi, Claudia & Gitto, Simone & Mancuso, Paolo, 2011. "New evidence on the efficiency of Italian airports: A bootstrapped DEA analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 84-93, June.
    6. Dixit, Aasheesh & Jakhar, Suresh Kumar, 2021. "Airport capacity management: A review and bibliometric analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    7. Fernandes, Elton & Pacheco, Ricardo Rodrigues, 2018. "Managerial performance of airports in Brazil before and after concessions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 245-257.
    8. Randrianarisoa, Laingo Manitra & Bolduc, Denis & Choo, Yap Yin & Oum, Tae Hoon & Yan, Jia, 2015. "Effects of corruption on efficiency of the European airports," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 65-83.
    9. Ahn, Young-Hyo & Min, Hokey, 2014. "Evaluating the multi-period operating efficiency of international airports using data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist productivity index," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 12-22.
    10. Zou, Bo & Kafle, Nabin & Chang, Young-Tae & Park, Kevin, 2015. "US airport financial reform and its implications for airport efficiency: An exploratory investigation," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 66-78.
    11. Tae Hoon Oum & Katsuhiro Yamaguchi & Yuichiro Yoshida, 2011. "Efficiency Measurement Theory and its Application to Airport Benchmarking," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Ouyang, Xiaoling & Sun, Chuanwang, 2015. "Energy savings potential in China's industrial sector: From the perspectives of factor price distortion and allocative inefficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 117-126.
    13. Lim, Siew Hoon & Karanki, Fecri, 2020. "Airport use agreement types and input and output slacks: The case of U.S. airports," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    14. David H. Good & M. Ishaq Nadiri & Robin C. Sickles, 1996. "Index Number and Factor Demand Approaches to the Estimation of Productivity," NBER Working Papers 5790, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Huynh, Triet Minh & Kim, Gyuseung & Ha, Hun-Koo, 2020. "Comparative analysis of efficiency for major Southeast Asia airports: A two-stage approach," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    16. Kan Tsui, Wai Hong & Balli, Hatice Ozer & Gilbey, Andrew & Gow, Hamish, 2014. "Operational efficiency of Asia–Pacific airports," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 16-24.
    17. Fernández, Xose Luis & Gundelfinger, Javier & Coto-Millán, Pablo, 2022. "The impact of logistics and intermodality on airport efficiency," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 233-239.
    18. Malighetti, G & Martini, G & Paleari, S & Redondi, R, 2009. "The Impacts of Airport Centrality in the EU Network and Inter- Airport Competition on Airport Efficiency," MPRA Paper 17673, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Luis R. Murillo‐Zamorano, 2004. "Economic Efficiency and Frontier Techniques," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 33-77, February.
    20. Kaya, Gizem & Aydın, Umut & Karadayı, Melis Almula & Ülengin, Füsun & Ülengin, Burç & İçken, Ayhan, 2022. "Integrated methodology for evaluating the efficiency of airports: A case study in Turkey," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 31-47.

    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:sae:pubfin:v:40:y:2012:i:6:p:712-735. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.