Measuring firms' dynamic inefficiency accounting for corporate social responsibility in the U.S. food and beverage manufacturing industry

This article proposes an innovative approach to evaluate firms' inefficiency accounting for corporate social responsibility. In the first step, we estimate dynamic inefficiency for each factor of production using data envelopment analysis. Next, we explore differences in inefficiencies between groups of firms of which participation is determined using latent class analysis. The empirical application focuses on the United States food and beverage manufacturing firms over the period 2004–2018. The results distinguish three classes of firms that differ in terms of their inefficiency, their association with external covariates as well as in their input–output profiles.