This study surveys the data envelopment analysis (DEA) literature by applying a citation-based approach. The main goals are to find a set of papers playing the central role in DEA development and to discover the latest active DEA subareas. A directional network is constructed based on citation relationships among academic papers. After assigning an importance index to each link in the citation network, main DEA development paths emerge. We examine various types of main paths, including local main path, global main path, and multiple main paths. The analysis result suggests, as expected, that Charnes et al. (1978) [Charnes A, Cooper WW, Rhodes E. Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research 1978; 2(6): 429–444] is the most influential DEA paper. The five most active DEA subareas in recent years are identified; among them the “two-stage contextual factor evaluation framework” is relatively more active. Aside from the main path analysis, we summarize basic statistics on DEA journals and researchers. A growth curve analysis hints that the DEA literature’s size will eventually grow to at least double the size of the existing literature.

Data envelopment analysis 1978-2010: A citation-based literature survey

http://meta-analysis.cz/bma/meta_horspill.pdf

Determinants of Horizontal Spillovers from FDI: Evidence from a Large Meta-Analysis

This paper provides an extensive overview of the literature on efficiency in education. It summarizes the earlier applied inputs, outputs and contextual variables, as well as the used data sources of papers in the field of efficiency in education. Moreover, it reviews the papers on education that applied methodologies as data envelopment analysis, Malmquist index, Bootstrapping, robust frontiers, metafrontier or stochastic frontier analysis. Based on the insights of the literature review, a second part of the paper provides some ways forward. It attempts to establish a link between the parametric ‘economics of education’ literature and the (semi-parametric) ‘efficiency in education literature’. We point to the similarities between matching and conditional efficiency; difference-in-differences and metafrontiers; and quantile regressions and partial frontiers. The paper concludes with some practical directions for prospective researchers in the field.

/pdf/efficiency-in-education-a-review-of-literature-and-a-way-jq65h8tz6o.pdf

Efficiency in education: a review of literature and a way forward

Production Frontiers: Introduction

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models with undesirable inputs and outputs have been frequently discussed in DEA literature, e.g., via data transformation. These studies were scatted in the literature, and often confined to some particular applications. In this paper we present a systematic investigation on model building of DEA without transferring undesirable data. We first describe the disposability assumptions and a number of different performance measures in the presence of undesirable inputs and outputs, and then discuss different combinations of the disposability assumptions and the metrics. This approach leads to a unified presentation of several classes of DEA models with undesirable inputs and/or outputs.

DEA models with undesirable inputs and outputs

This paper is drawn from the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) in helping a Portuguese bank to manage the performance of its branches. The bank wanted to set targets for the branches on such variables as growth in number of clients, growth in funds deposited and so on. Such variables can take positive and negative values but apart from some exceptions, traditional DEA models have hitherto been restricted to non-negative data. We report on the development of a model to handle unrestricted data in a DEA framework and illustrate the use of this model on data from the bank concerned.

/pdf/negative-data-in-dea-a-directional-distance-approach-applied-hs029n0g3p.pdf

Negative data in DEA: a directional distance approach applied to bank branches

This paper discusses the use of the non-parametric free disposal hull (FDH) and the parametric multi-level model (MLM) as alternative methods for measuring pupil and school attainment where hierarchical structured data are available. Using robust FDH estimates, we show how to decompose the overall inefficiency of a unit (a pupil) into a unit specific and a higher level (a school) component. By a sample of entry and exit attainments of 3017 girls in British ordinary single sex schools, we test the robustness of the non-parametric and parametric estimates. Finally, the paper uses the traditional MLM model in a best practice framework so that pupil and school efficiencies can be computed.

Assessing pupil and school performance by non-parametric and parametric techniques

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a popular non-parametric technique for determining the efficiency of a homogeneous set of decision-making units (DMUs). In many practical cases, there is some doubt if the all the DMUs form a single group with a common efficiency distribution. The Mann-Whitney rank statistic has been used in DEA both to test if two groups of DMUs come from a common efficiency distribution and also to test if the two groups have a common frontier, each of which are likely to have important but different policy implications for the management of the groups. In this paper it is demonstrated that where the Mann-Whitney rank statistic is used for the second of these it is likely to overestimate programmatic inefficiency, particularly of the smaller group. A new non-parametric statistic is proposed for the case of comparing the efficient frontiers of two groups, which overcomes the problems we identify in the use of the Mann-Whitney rank statistic for this purpose. © 2005 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved.

/pdf/programmatic-efficiency-comparisons-between-unequally-sized-1puysax6sa.pdf

Programmatic efficiency comparisons between unequally sized groups of DMUs in DEA

A path-dependent contingent-claims approach to capacity investments

Differencing from previous studies on foreign direct investment (FDI) spillovers to domestic enterprises which mainly focus on productivity, in this paper we take a different perspective by analysing the impacts of FDI to technical efficiency of domestic firms. The paper goes beyond the current literature to shed some light on the spillover effects of FDI to technical efficiency of small and medium enterprises in a developing country. By exploiting a firm-level panel dataset and using SFA models following Battese and Coelli (1995), the paper is able to analyse horizontal spillovers through imitation and competition and labour mobility as well as vertical spillovers through backward and forward linkages on technical efficiency. The paper contributes to the understanding of potential effects on foreign invested enterprises on domestic economy in general and local enterprises performance in particular. Thus it importantly assists policy making by the government of developing countries, where FDI is believed to create technical spillovers on domestic enterprises.

Gary Simpson

Papers

Negative data in DEA: a directional distance approach applied to bank branches

Assessing pupil and school performance by non-parametric and parametric techniques

Programmatic efficiency comparisons between unequally sized groups of DMUs in DEA

A path-dependent contingent-claims approach to capacity investments

FDI horizontal and vertical effects on local firm technical efficiency