Relative efficiency of Argentinean airports

Gustavo Ferro (1) , Fabián Garitta (2) , Carlos A. Romero (1)

1 INECO - Instituto de Economía [Buenos Aires]
2 UADE - Universidad Argentina de la Empresa [Buenos Aires]

The main objectives of this paper are to measure the relative efficiency of Argentinean airports, and to infer possible regulatory consequences of the results. We pay attention to regional differences that could help the regulator in its task. At the same time, we try to determine which “environmental” variables (in the sense of particular conditions which are specific to different sets of airports) affect the relative efficiency of different airports. Since 1997, most of the airports were privatized, by means of concessions contracts. Of the DEA analysis we derive two broad conclusions. Firstly, significant differences in efficiency are prevalent in Argentinean airports. Secondly, best-practice calculations indicate that much of the Argentinean airports operate at a high level of efficiency during the period. Therefore, the overall conclusion is that Argentinean airports are mixed managed during the period as far as technical efficiency is concerned. Moreover, dimension makes a difference and therefore, some airports have decreasing returns to scale, while others have increasing returns to scale.

Mots clés: efficiency; airports; Argentina

Domaines: Economies et finances

Gustavo Ferro, Fabián Garitta, Carlos A. Romero. Relative efficiency of Argentinean airports. 2010. ⟨hal-00468062⟩