frontier

News

• December 2008:
  Functions for writing input files for and reading output files of FRONTIER 4.1 ("front41WriteInput" and "front41ReadOutput") have been moved from the micEcon package to this package.
• October 19, 2008
  The frontier package is developed on R-Forge now. Its summary page is available here.

What is frontier?

• frontier is an extension package for the "language and environment for statistical computing and graphics" called R.
• frontier estimates stochastic frontier production and cost functions by maximum likelihood. Two specifications are available: the error components specification with time-varying efficiencies (Battese and Coelli, 1992) and a model specification in which the firm effects are directly influenced by a number of variables (Battese and Coelli, 1995).
• frontier includes the Fortran source code of Tim Coelli's software FRONTIER 4.1 and hence, provides the same features as FRONTIER 4.1. A comprehensive documentation of FRONTIER 4.1 is available in the file "Front41.pdf" that is included in the archive "FRONT41-xp1.zip", which is available at http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/cepa/frontier.htm. This documentation is helpful also to users of the frontier package, because this package is based on the FRONTIER 4.1 software.
• Furthermore, frontier includes functions for:
  • writing input files for FRONTIER 4.1 (function "front41WriteInput")
  • reading output files of FRONTIER 4.1 (function "front41ReadOutput")
  • Note: A modified version of Tim Coelli's FRONTIER 4.1 software that can be used non-interactively has been developed within this project. This non-interactive version can be conveniently called from within R using the "system" command (see example in documentation of "front41WriteInput").

Who has written frontier?

• Tim Coelli has written the Fortran source code, which is the main component of this package.
• Arne Henningsen has written the R interface and has modified the Fortran code so that it can be used in this R package.

Where can I get frontier?

• The released version is available on CRAN
  • You can download the source code, binaries for MacOS X and MS-Windows, and the reference manual from http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/frontier/.
  • You can install the package by typing at the R prompt (if you have internet access):

     install.packages( "frontier" )

• The current development version is available on R-Forge
  • You can download the source code and binaries for MacOS X and MS-Windows from http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/frontier/.
  • You can install the package by typing at the R prompt (if you have internet access):

     install.packages( "frontier", repos="http://R-Forge.R-project.org" )

Under which license is frontier released?

• Under the GNU General Public License (GPL)

How can I contact you?

• You can contact Arne via email: arne(dot)henningsen(at)googlemail(dot)com.
• Take a look at Arne's homepage: http://www.arne-henningsen.name