COMPARISON OF PRODUCTION PERFORMANCE IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SECTORS IN THE EU SELECTED COUNTRIES

The paper deals with production performance evaluation and comparison among the EU selected countries in information and communication sectors in the period 2005 - 2012. We estimate a translog stochastic production frontier using Corrected Ordinary Least Squares (COLS) method in the total Information and communication sector (J) and also its two parts - Telecommunications (J61) and Computer programming, consultancy and information service activities (J62-63). We also compare the distribution of the Malmquist productivity index and its decomposition into technical and technological changes. The results confirmed that the translog production function is preferred over a Cobb-Douglas functional form with neutral technical progress. Estimated technical efficiency was the highest in the whole sector J and slightly lower is in subsector J61. Development of the Malmquist productivity index in the sector of Information and communication services exhibits a declining trend from 2006 to 2008, followed by a moderate rise till the year 2010 and another slight declining. Based on the decomposition of the Malmquist Index, we observed that technology efficiency change seems to have a rather small effect on the productivity growth.