Abstract
DEA is a method for measuring comparative or relative efficiency. We speak of relative efficiency because its measurement by DEA is with reference to some set of units we are comparing with each other. We cannot in general derive by means of DEA some absolute measure of efficiency unless we make additional assumptions that the units being compared include a ‘sufficient’ number of units which are efficient in some absolute sense. Thus in a practical setting units which we may find efficient by DEA may in fact be capable of improving their performance even further.
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© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Thanassoulis, E. (2001). Definitions of Efficiency and Related Measures. In: Introduction to the Theory and Application of Data Envelopment Analysis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1407-7_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1407-7_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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