Technological leadership and variety: A Data Envelopment Analysis for the French machinery industry

We investigate structure and structural change within the French machinery industry from 1984–1991 in order to detect the apparent technology leaders and to get an account of the technological variety within the sector. The theoretical background of the paper is found in modern approaches to the economics of innovation and technology, where the very nature of technological knowledge and the local character of technological change are seen as a fundamental reason for the use of different technologies and for the different performances of firms. We apply a procedure that allows us to take into account such different performances and variety, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). As one major result, we find several best-practice technologies as well as a measure of technical inefficiency, allowing us to classify firms with respect to their relative technical performance. Moreover, technology leaders can be assigned to specific technology fields. The change within and between these fields over time is investigated.