德国公共剧院的效率:随机前沿分析法

The Efficiency of German Public Theaters:A Stochastic Frontier Analysis Approach

近年来,文化服务机构等非营利性部门的经济表现一直是一个备受关注的问题。一方面是因为文化机构对公共资金的依赖度较高,另一方面是因为对公共预算的需求量越来越大。为了能够以最小成本来有效分配资源,负责对公共预算进行分配的政府部门就必须借助于可靠的表现指标。针对这一问题,本文对德国公共剧院1991/1992年和2005/2006年各季度的效率进行了分析。本研究采用了随机前沿分析法,检验了成本最小化行为在这一领域是否存在。此外,本文还采用了若干个面板数据模型来分析非观测到的异质性对效率估计的影响,不同模型对非观测到的异质性的解释力有所差别。研究结果表明,成本最小化行为在这一领域并不存在。因此,对于德国公共剧院来说,基于成本函数分析的效率分析法似乎并不适用。此外,研究还发现,不同剧院之间存在较大的非观测到的异质性,因而在各模型的效率分析中出现了显著差异。这说明,如果不将非观测到的异质性考虑在内,效率值就会有所偏颇。总之,此项研究发现,在公共文化领域要实现资源的合理应用,仍有很多工作要做。

In recent years the economic performance of public non-profit sectors such as cultural services has become an interesting economic issue.This is due to the high dependence of cultural institutions on public funding on the one hand and the increasing cost-pressure on public budgets on the other hand.In order to achieve an efficient,cost-minimizing resource allocation public authorities who decide on the distribution of public budgets need reliable performance indicators.Against this background,this paper analyzes the efficiency of German public theaters for the seasons 1991/1992-2005/2006.Using a stochastic frontier analysis approach,we test whether the assumption of cost-minimizing behavior is reliable in this sector.Moreover,several panel data models that differ in their ability to account for unobserved heterogeneity are applied to evaluate the impact of unobserved heterogeneity on the efficiency estimates.The results indicate that the cost-minimizing assumption cannot be maintained.Consequently,an efficiency analysis based on a cost function approach seems inappropriate in the case of German public theaters.Further,we find a considerable unobserved heterogeneity across the theaters,which causes a significant variation in the models＇ efficiency estimates.This implies that failing to account for unobserved heterogeneity leads to biased efficiency values.Overall,our results suggest that there is still space for improvement in the employment of resources in the sector.