Technical Efficiency of cultural goods and services: an analysis of the Mexican Case

Abstract

The study of Cultural Economics is increasingly more important in the world, and it has a number of different aspects to be analyzed. However, in Mexico, it is an emerging activity despite the fact that, nowadays, the information about cultural economic indicators is available since 2008. The lack of research on this topic in Mexico, from the perspective of Economic Sciences, begs the question of how the usage of factors is taking place, and if they are being used in an optimal way or, in other words, with efficiency. As a result, the objective of this research is to obtain an indicator of technical efficiency for the components of cultural goods and services in Mexico that allows us to contribute to the understanding of these activities from an economic perspective. In order to achieve the objective mentioned earlier, this study uses the methodology of Stochastic Frontier Analysis through an econometric application of panel data. Among the main findings, it was noticed that the cultural goods and services are highly efficient in an aggregated manner, as it was obtained an indicator close to 100 percent. In a disaggregated manner, the components of cultural services are more efficient compared to the cultural goods. Additionally, in a disaggregated manner, the efficiency average is 67%. Therefore, it is still possible to improve the usage of productive factors in a 33%.