Essays on Productivity and Efficiency Analysis

This thesis is made up of four chapters on productivity and efficiency analysis. The first chapter is a critical review of theoretical and empirical literatures related to this broad field, which has attracted a considerable amount of economic research in the last years; the other three chapters are original contributions in different directions. Chapter 2 consists of an extensive Monte Carlo exercise on the misspecification of the inefficiency distribution in stochastic frontier models, Chapter 3 investigates, both theoretically and empirically, the relationship between vertical integration and firm efficiency in the Italian machine tool industry, and, finally, Chapter 4 sheds light on the effect of both inward and outward foreign direct investments on regional productivity growth in Europe. Although each chapter has its own independence, two features characterize the entire thesis: the detection of large differences in production performance both at the micro and aggregate level, and the attempt to relate these differences to other aspects of the production units, starting from economic theory.