Journal Article

Weight assurance region in two-stage additive efficiency decomposition DEA model: an application to school data

Kourtzidis, Stavros A, Halkos, George E, Tzeremes, Nickolaos G

2015

Overview

In this paper we use the additive efficiency decomposition approach in two-stage data envelopment analysis. Initially, we evaluate the variable returns to scale version and face a structural difficulty of the model. In an extreme case, weights ξ 1 or ξ 2 , which represent the relative importance of the performance of the first and second stages, respectively, become zero for a number of decision making units (DMUs). As a result, individual stage efficiencies for these DMUs are undefined. We propose a weight assurance region model to restrict ξ 1 and ξ 2 , which ensures that both weights are always positive, and therefore individual stage efficiency is always defined. Furthermore, the proposed model is appropriate for policy making in the presence of a priori information about the relative importance of each stage in the overall process. We employ the new model to evaluate the efficiency of secondary education in 65 countries and construct an overall 'school efficiency' index. In the first stage we measure the 'learning environment efficiency' and in the second we measure the 'student's performance efficiency'.

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis,Palgrave Macmillan,Palgrave Macmillan UK,Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subject: additive two-stage DEA / assurance regions / Business and Management / Data envelopment analysis / Decision making / Decision making models / Decomposition / Efficiency / General Paper / General Papers / Linear programming / Management / Operations research / Operations Research/Decision Theory / school efficiency / Studies / Variables