[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_7013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Super-Efficiency of Education Institutions: An Application to Economics Departments

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Gnewuch
  • Klaus Wohlrabe
Abstract
This paper investigates the efficiency of 188 economics departments around the world using data from RePEc. We go beyond the heavily used data envelopment analysis and utilize partial frontier analysis - specifically order-α and order-m - which addresses some of the drawbacks of the standard efficiency frontier analysis and allows for so-called super-efficient departments. We examine the particularities of these approaches and find that the super-efficient departments are not only the “usual suspects”. Furthermore, standard output rankings are not well correlated with our estimated efficiency rankings, which themselves are rather similar.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Gnewuch & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "Super-Efficiency of Education Institutions: An Application to Economics Departments," CESifo Working Paper Series 7013, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Zimmermann, 2013. "Academic Rankings with RePEc," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 1(3), pages 1-32, December.
    2. Johnes, Geraint, 1988. "Determinants of research output in economics departments in British universities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 171-178, June.
    3. Andrew Worthington, 2001. "An Empirical Survey of Frontier Efficiency Measurement Techniques in Education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 245-268.
    4. Dominique Deprins & Léopold Simar & Henry Tulkens, 2006. "Measuring Labor-Efficiency in Post Offices," Springer Books, in: Parkash Chander & Jacques Drèze & C. Knox Lovell & Jack Mintz (ed.), Public goods, environmental externalities and fiscal competition, chapter 0, pages 285-309, Springer.
    5. Kocher, Martin G. & Luptacik, Mikulas & Sutter, Matthias, 2006. "Measuring productivity of research in economics: A cross-country study using DEA," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 314-332, December.
    6. Aragon, Y. & Daouia, A. & Thomas-Agnan, C., 2005. "Nonparametric Frontier Estimation: A Conditional Quantile-Based Approach," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 358-389, April.
    7. Cherchye, L. & Abeele, P. Vanden, 2005. "On research efficiency: A micro-analysis of Dutch university research in Economics and Business Management," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 495-516, May.
    8. Gary Madden & Scott Savage & Steven Kemp, 1997. "Measuring Public Sector Efficiency: A Study of Economics Departments at Australian Universities," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 153-168.
    9. Per Andersen & Niels Christian Petersen, 1993. "A Procedure for Ranking Efficient Units in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1261-1264, October.
    10. Massimo Franceschet, 2009. "A cluster analysis of scholar and journal bibliometric indicators," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(10), pages 1950-1964, October.
    11. Seiler, Christian & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2012. "Ranking economists on the basis of many indicators: An alternative approach using RePEc data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 389-402.
    12. Domingo Docampo, 2011. "On using the Shanghai ranking to assess the research performance of university systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(1), pages 77-92, January.
    13. Christopher Bruffaerts & Bram De Rock & Catherine Dehon, 2013. "The Research Efficiency of US Universities: a Nonparametric Frontier Modelling Approach," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2013-31, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Breu, Theodore M. & Raab, Raymond L., 1994. "Efficiency and perceived quality of the nation's "top 25" National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges: An application of data envelopment analysis to higher education," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 33-45.
    15. Costas, Rodrigo & Bordons, María, 2007. "The h-index: Advantages, limitations and its relation with other bibliometric indicators at the micro level," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 193-203.
    16. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2006. "Advanced indicators of productivity of universitiesAn application of robust nonparametric methods to Italian data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 66(2), pages 389-410, February.
    17. K De Witte & N Rogge & L Cherchye & T Van Puyenbroeck, 2013. "Accounting for economies of scope in performance evaluations of university professors," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 64(11), pages 1595-1606, November.
    18. Ortega, José Luis & López-Romero, Elena & Fernández, Inés, 2011. "Multivariate approach to classify research institutes according to their outputs: The case of the CSIC's institutes," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 323-332.
    19. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    20. Klaus Wohlrabe & Felix de Moya Anegon & Lutz Bornmann, 2018. "How efficiently produce elite US universities highly cited papers? A case study based on input and output data," ifo Working Paper Series 264, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    21. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    22. Joseph Macri & Dipendra Sinha, 2006. "Rankings Methodology for International Comparisons of Institutions and Individuals: an Application to Economics in Australia and New Zealand," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 111-156, February.
    23. Dundar, Halil & Lewis, Darrell R., 1995. "Departmental productivity in American universities: Economies of scale and scope," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 119-144, June.
    24. Michael E. Conroy & Richard Dusansky, 1995. "The Productivity of Economics Departments in the U.S.: Publications in the Core Journals," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1966-1971, December.
    25. Melville McMillan & Wing Chan, 2006. "University Efficiency: A Comparison and Consolidation of Results from Stochastic and Non-stochastic Methods," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 1-30.
    26. Klaus Wohlrabe & Elisabeth Friedrich, 2017. "The efficiency of economics departments reconsidered," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 1602-1611.
    27. Cazals, Catherine & Florens, Jean-Pierre & Simar, Leopold, 2002. "Nonparametric frontier estimation: a robust approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 1-25, January.
    28. Emrouznejad, Ali & Parker, Barnett R. & Tavares, Gabriel, 2008. "Evaluation of research in efficiency and productivity: A survey and analysis of the first 30 years of scholarly literature in DEA," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 151-157, September.
    29. Mehdi Rhaiem, 2017. "Measurement and determinants of academic research efficiency: a systematic review of the evidence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 581-615, February.
    30. Domingo Docampo, 2011. "Erratum to: On using the Shanghai ranking to assess the research performance of university systems," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 86(1), pages 237-237, January.
    31. Tommaso Agasisti & Geraint Johnes, 2009. "Beyond frontiers: comparing the efficiency of higher education decision-making units across more than one country," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 59-79.
    32. Harald Tauchmann, 2012. "Partial frontier efficiency analysis," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(3), pages 461-478, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fabiola Saavedra-Caballero, 2024. "Recent Graduates in the Labor Market: The Efficiency Frontier of Higher Education Institutions," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 65(4), pages 755-774, June.
    2. Püttmann, Vitus & Thomsen, Stephan L. & Trunzer, Johannes, 2020. "Zur Relevanz von Ausstattungsunterschieden für Forschungsleistungsvergleiche: Ein Diskussionsbeitrag für die Wirtschaftswissenschaften in Deutschland," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-679, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, revised Mar 2021.
    3. Klaus Wohlrabe & Sabine Gralka & Lutz Bornmann, 2019. "Zur Effizienz deutscher Universitäten und deren Entwicklung zwischen 2004 und 2015," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 72(21), pages 15-21, November.
    4. Simona Ferraro & Tommaso Agasisti & Francesco Porcelli & Mara Soncin, 2021. "Local governments’ efficiency and educational results: empirical evidence from Italian primary schools," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(35), pages 4017-4039, July.
    5. Köppl-Turyna, Monika & Bittó, Virág & Graf, Nikolaus, 2022. "Effizienzpotenziale in der Kinderbetreuung in Österreich," Policy Notes 50, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Klaus Wohlrabe & Félix de Moya Anegon & Lutz Bornmann, 2019. "How Efficiently Do Elite US Universities Produce Highly Cited Papers?," Publications, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-15, January.
    7. Klaus Wohlrabe & Sabine Gralka, 2020. "Using archetypoid analysis to classify institutions and faculties of economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 159-179, April.
    8. Cantner, Uwe & Grashof, Nils & Grebel, Thomas & Zhang, Xijie, 2023. "When Excellence is not Excellent: The Impact of the Excellence Initiative on the Relative Productivity of German Universities," MPRA Paper 118139, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Baumann, Alexendra & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2019. "Publikationen von Wirtschaftsforschungsinstituten im deutschsprachigen Raum - Eine bibliometrische Analyse [Publications of Economic Research Insitutes in the German Speaking Area - A bibliometric ," MPRA Paper 92240, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Bornmann, Lutz & Gralka, Sabine & Anegón, Félix de Moya & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2023. "Efficiency of universities and research-focused institutions worldwide: The introduction of a new input indicator reflecting institutional staff numbers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    11. Matthias Gnewuch & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "Die (Super-)Effizienz von volkswirtschaftlichen Fakultäten," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(15), pages 30-34, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Klaus Wohlrabe & Elisabeth Friedrich, 2017. "The efficiency of economics departments reconsidered," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 1602-1611.
    2. Kristof De Witte & Laura López-Torres, 2017. "Efficiency in education: a review of literature and a way forward," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(4), pages 339-363, April.
    3. Mehdi Rhaiem, 2017. "Measurement and determinants of academic research efficiency: a systematic review of the evidence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 581-615, February.
    4. Mehdi Rhaiem & Nabil Amara, 2020. "Determinants of research efficiency in Canadian business schools: evidence from scholar-level data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 53-99, October.
    5. Klaus Wohlrabe & Felix de Moya Anegon & Lutz Bornmann, 2018. "How efficiently produce elite US universities highly cited papers? A case study based on input and output data," ifo Working Paper Series 264, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    6. Calogero Guccio & Marco Ferdinando Martorana & Isidoro Mazza, 2016. "Efficiency assessment and convergence in teaching and research in Italian public universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(3), pages 1063-1094, June.
    7. Klaus Wohlrabe & Félix de Moya Anegon & Lutz Bornmann, 2019. "How Efficiently Do Elite US Universities Produce Highly Cited Papers?," Publications, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-15, January.
    8. Matthias Gnewuch & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "Die (Super-)Effizienz von volkswirtschaftlichen Fakultäten," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(15), pages 30-34, August.
    9. Lutz Bornmann & Alexander Butz & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "What are the top five journals in economics? A new meta-ranking," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(6), pages 659-675, February.
    10. Renato A. Villano & Carolyn‐Dung T. T. Tran, 2021. "Survey on technical efficiency in higher education: A meta‐fractional regression analysis," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 110-135, February.
    11. Cristian Barra & Roberto Zotti, 2016. "Measuring Efficiency in Higher Education: An Empirical Study Using a Bootstrapped Data Envelopment Analysis," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 22(1), pages 11-33, February.
    12. Amara, Nabil & Rhaiem, Mehdi & Halilem, Norrin, 2020. "Assessing the research efficiency of Canadian scholars in the management field: Evidence from the DEA and fsQCA," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 296-306.
    13. Rita Bastião & Nuno de Sousa Pereira, 2020. "Performance in the Delivery of Primary Health Care Services: A Longitudinal Analysis," CEF.UP Working Papers 2002, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    14. Emrouznejad, Ali & De Witte, Kristof, 2010. "COOPER-framework: A unified process for non-parametric projects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(3), pages 1573-1586, December.
    15. Calogero Guccio & Marco Ferdinando Martorana & Luisa Monaco, 2016. "Evaluating the impact of the Bologna Process on the efficiency convergence of Italian universities: a non-parametric frontier approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 275-298, June.
    16. Sanjeet Singh & Prabhat Ranjan, 2018. "Efficiency analysis of non-homogeneous parallel sub-unit systems for the performance measurement of higher education," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 269(1), pages 641-666, October.
    17. Seiler, Christian & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2012. "Ranking economists on the basis of many indicators: An alternative approach using RePEc data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 389-402.
    18. Seiler, Christian & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2013. "Archetypal scientists," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 345-356.
    19. G. Thomas Sav, 2013. "Effects of Financial Source Dependency on Public University Operating Efficiencies: Data Envelopment Single-Stage and Tobit Two-Stage Evaluations," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 3, pages 63-73, February.
    20. Lee, Seonghee & Lee, Hakyeon, 2015. "Measuring and comparing the R&D performance of government research institutes: A bottom-up data envelopment analysis approach," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 942-953.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    super-efficiency; economics departments; data envelopment analysis; order-α; order-m; free disposal hull; RePEc;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Papers using RePEc data

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.