In this study, an appropriate nonparametric two-step approach to conditional efficiencies is used to investigate how size and time affect the performance of companies. Using a dataset of Italian manufacturing firms over the period 2006–2015, we explore the effect of size on the attainable production set (input-output space) and on the efficiency distribution, without making any a priori assumptions on the role of size on efficiency. Main findings suggest that size positively affects the efficiency of companies. By exploring the idiosyncratic efficiency, an additional empirical result from the conditional efficiency approach shows that the economic disparities between North, Centre and South of Italy not only limit the foreign investment but also seem to penalize the productivity of Italian-owned companies.

中文翻译：

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规模和生产力：意大利制药业的有条件方法

在这项研究中，使用一种适用于条件效率的非参数两步法来研究规模和时间如何影响公司的绩效。使用2006-2015年期间意大利制造企业的数据集，我们探讨了规模对可实现的生产集（投入产出空间）和效率分布的影响，而没有事先假设规模对效率的作用。主要发现表明，规模对公司的效率产生积极影响。通过探索特殊效率，条件效率方法的另一项经验结果表明，意大利北部，中部和南部之间的经济差异不仅限制了外国投资，而且似乎对意大利拥有的公司的生产率造成了不利影响。