Assessing the productivity of the Italian hospitality sector: a post-WDEA pooled-truncated and spatial analysis

This paper analyses the productivity of the hospitality sector (hotel and restaurants) in Italy at a regional level by using a mix of non-parametric and parametric approaches. A novel pooled-truncated and spatial analysis is employed, based upon a window data envelopment analysis (WDEA), where pure technical efficiency is computed. The WDEA results show that Lombardy is the best relative performer. However, overall Italian regions reveal important sources of inefficiency mostly related to their inputs. As a post-WDEA, the pooled-truncated estimation indicates that the rate of utilisation and regional intrinsic features positively affect hospitality efficiency. Nevertheless, the spatial analysis does not support evidence of spill-over effects amongst Italian regions.