Measuring the technical efficiency of airports in Latin America

Relying on a unique dataset this paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis methods to compute an efficient production frontier for a representative sample of Latin American airports. Latin America has implemented a wide variety of private sector participation schemes in the airport sector since the late 90s. To assess whether privately operated airports had higher rates of total factor productivity growth than public airports we compute Malmquist indexes for the period 2000–2007. Results indicate that privately operated airports enjoyed higher rates of total factor productivity growth.

► Based on a unique dataset this paper computes an efficiency frontier for Latin American airports.
► Malmquist Indexes are used to study the evolution of Latin American airports from 2000 to 2007.
► Privately operated airports experienced higher rates of total factor productivity growth.