A graphing tool for efficiency ratio's
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Curvator is a simple application that draws frontier production curves using efficiency ratio’s that have been calculated by means of Data Envelopment Analysis, the Frontier Approach or any other method that produces efficiency ratio’s. Curvator does not produce these efficiency ratio’s by itself.
Background
I wrote this application, because I needed a quick and easy way to turn the results of Coelli’s FRONTIER application into presentable graphs. I tried several professional data processing applications and graphing software, but they didn’t do what I wanted. So, I wrote one myself.
Minimum Requirements
For Curvator, you need a PowerPC and MacOS 8 or later. At least AppleScript 1.4 has to be installed. Warning: Curvator doesn’t check these requirements when starting. So, if your Mac doesn’t comply with the requirements, you may still want to try at the risk of a crash.
Curvator needs roughly 14MB of memory allocated to it. If you reduce memory, the screen may be redrawn incorrectly. If this happens, click the zoom box and reduce the window by dragging the bottom-right corner.
Quick Start
To use Curvator, create a tab-separated datafile with input data in the first two columns, for example capital and labour. These data need to be logaritmic. Any following column can contain whatever data you want, for example different efficiency measures.
Open Curvator and choose Import Data... from the File menu. Now, you can find and choose a data file in the appearing dialogue. The data window appears on screen. Now choose Select Column... from the Frontier menu. Enter the number of the column that contains the efficiency measures that you want to draw. Now, you can choose Draw from the Frontier menu. The graph will appear in the main window.
More features
To add thick axes, choose Draw Axes from the Frontier menu. You can also draw a grid by choosing the appropriate menu item. If you want all observations to be projected against the frontier, choose Draw Frontier from the Frontier menu.
You can change the marker symbols that indicate each observation. Choose Markers from the Frontier menu and choose a marker symbol from the palette that appears. The Regression menu item of the Frontier menu shows the regression coefficient of the input factors in a dialog.
Save the current state of your file (including selected column and chosen markers) using the Save item of the the File menu. You can export a picture --the reason for writing this application at all-- by choosing PICT... from the Export submenu of the File menu. The EPS option doesn’t work yet.
Plans for the future
Adding a way to do efficiency analysis and EPS export. There are several bugs in this application that still have to be removed. E.g., don’t try to overwrite existing pictures; it just won’t work. If you find more bugs, please drop me a note.
Contact
If you have questions or comments about this application, please contact the author at marksch@zonnet.nl. Download this application here (580K).
License
In the text below, application/stack refers to Curvator 1.0 and the accompanying components. Author refers to Mark Schonewille, product is defined as any medium that may contain Curvator 1.0. Other terms are defined by international agreements, directions of the European Union or Dutch national laws. A number of terms are defined by custom law.
This application/stack is a copyright protected. The application/stack and all other components of this software package cannot be sold as a separate software package and cannot be part of any commercial product, such as magazines, shareware collections on cd-rom and the internet, books and promotional artefacts, without a written permit of the author. This restriction also holds if the product is a free gift.
This application/stack may be freely distributed in unaltered form, as long as the above restriction is not violated. This means that This application/stack is freeware, but the property rights remain with the author. The author is eligible to request the removal of the application/stack from hard disks and computers and the destruction of any other product that contains the application/stack.
The author and the persons who are mentioned anywhere in the application/stack or documentation are not responsible for any damage that is possibly, allegedly or actually a consequence of the use of the application/stack.
IMPORTANT: even though this application/stack may be distributed freely for non-commercial purposes, the copyrights still apply to the application/stack as well as separate parts of it. Some parts of the application/stack are copyrighted by Apple Computer. The externals are copyrighted by the persons who are mentioned under the Credits header.
Last update: 02-06-2005