A cost frontier approach for estimating the determinants of cost inefficiency in Japanese fire protection management [An article from: Journal of Asian Economics]

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Asian Economics, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper evaluates the cost performance of the fire protection service in terms of cost efficiency using a sample of 277 local governments in Japan in fiscal year 1998. The stochastic cost frontier methodology is used to incorporate the determinants of cost inefficiency explicitly. The empirical results indicate that: (a) the level of old people in a local government area is an important factor determining cost inefficiency; and (b) the significant relationship between the fiscal size of fire station and inefficiency is not supported statistically on Japanese fire protection services.