TITLE: Alternative Approaches to Technical Efficiency Estimation: A Comparative Study

ii Pursuing efficiency is a fundamental characteristic of economic activity. correspondingly, efficiency measurement seems an eternal interest of production economists. The present dissertation is a comparative study of alternative technical efficiency estimation methods. Two recently developed methods based on different methodologies, namely, data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the stochastic frontier approach (SF) are studied. In this dissertation we review the production and efficiency structure defined by modern production theory. Based on earlier works of Afriat, we discuss a set of propositions underpinning the non-parametric programming approach (or DEA). Further, we demonstrate the relationship between non-parametric and parametric productio