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Question: Alberto Chong of the University of Ottawa


Alberto Chong of the University of Ottawa and several colleagues conducted an experiment to test the efficiency of government postal services around the world. They mailed letters to nonexistent businesses in 159 countries and kept track of how many of the letters were returned. Was this test most relevant to evaluating the productive efficiency or the allocative efficiency of these postal services? Briefly explain.

Source: Alberto Chong, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, and Andrei Shleifer, “Letter Grading Government Eff iciency,” Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol. 12, No. 2, April 2014, pp. 277–299.


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