PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY UNDER CAPITALISM AND STATE SOCIALISM - AN EMPIRICAL INQUIRY USING CHANCE-CONSTRAINED DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

In this paper we undertake a comparison of the productive efficiency of a set of West European market economies and a set of East European planned economies. We employ the techniques of chance-constrained data envelopment analysis to conduct the comparison. These techniques are particularly appropriate when the performance of producers depends on their ability to make resource allocation decisions in the presence of technological and market uncertainties. We find the market economies to have been much more efficient in their allocation of resources.