Regional efficiency of the real estate industry in 35 large and medium-sized cities in China: a meta-frontier SBM approach

As the inputs of investment and employees in real estate sectors have continued to increase in recent years, it is crucial to study the evaluation of real estate performance. However, these rarely take the differentiation of the research objects into account, which easily causes deviations of empirical results. In order to obtain more authentic efficiency values, this study systematically analyses the regional real estate efficiency of 35 large and medium-sized cities in China from 2013 to 2017 based on the meta-frontier data envelopment analysis (DEA) with a slacks-based measure (SBM). Specifically, this study firstly simulates the production process by designing a three-stage dynamic DEA model and subsequently conducts a grouping analysis of the evaluated cities by introducing the meta-frontier framework. Through empirical analysis, we find that: (1) grouping regional efficiency evaluation is a modification of ungrouping efficiency; (2) the simulation of the real estate production process contributes to identifying the key problem which influences real estate efficiency; (3) government policy has a certain influence on the regional real estate sector in China. Finally, policy recommendations are proposed from three dimensions: the dimension of national macro policy; the dimension of policy implementation in local governments; and the dimension of management in real estate companies.