Emrouznejad, A. R. Banker, A.L.M Lopes, M. R. de Almeida (2014) “Data Envelopment Analysis in the Public Sector”. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 48 (1): 2-3.
Since its introduction in 1978, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has become one of the preeminent non-parametric methods for measuring efficiency and productivity of Decision Making Units (DMUs). DEA models are now employed routinely in areas that range from assessment of public sectors such as hospitals and health care systems, schools and universities to private sectors such as banks and financial institutions. The advantage of DEA is to accommodate multiple inputs and multiple outputs for measuring the relative efficiencies of a set of homogeneous DMUs. DEA does not require that output and input prices be available for this analysis, which is a significant advantage for public sector applications where such prices are not available.
The scope of this issue was extended beyond that of just the papers presented at the conference via an open invitation to the broader academic community working in the area of theory and applications of efficiency and productivity analysis. Papers were included in the special issue after a rigorous refereeing process, and represent only a small fraction of the total number of submitted manuscripts; there were 41 submissions to this issue.
