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Ranking Methods Within Data Envelopment Analysis

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The Palgrave Handbook of Economic Performance Analysis

Abstract

Within the field of data envelopment analysis is a sub-group of papers in which many researchers have sought to improve the differential capabilities of DEA and to fully rank both efficient, as well as inefficient, decision-making units. We have divided the ranking concepts into seven general areas based on the following concepts: super-efficiency, benchmarking, cross-efficiency, common set of weights, multivariate statistics, multi-criteria decision-making and inefficiency dominance. After describing the approaches, we compare and contrast them using an illustration drawn from a set of universities. It is apparent that the approaches succeed in strengthening the results of the non-parametric data envelopment analysis models and frequently enable an almost complete ranking of decision-making units. However, the results may diverge substantially between the different models, suggesting that the choice of framework must be context dependent and chosen with great care.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We included in our sample 20 of the 24 members of the Russell Group. Data for Cardiff University, University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow and Queen’s University Belfast was not available.

  2. 2.

    The Times Higher Education ranking aggregates 13 weighted performance indicators in the categories of teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation), citations (research influence), international outlook (staff, students and research) and industry income (knowledge transfer). Similarly, the QS world university ranking is based on six weighted metrics: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio and international student ratio.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Nicole Adler

  2. Cranfield University, Bedford, UK

    Nicola Volta

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  1. Nicole Adler
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Correspondence to Nicole Adler .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Thijs ten Raa

  2. Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    William H. Greene

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Adler, N., Volta, N. (2019). Ranking Methods Within Data Envelopment Analysis. In: ten Raa, T., Greene, W. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Economic Performance Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23727-1_7

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