A generalized equilibrium efficient frontier data envelopment analysis approach for evaluating DMUs with fixed-sum outputs

The recently published equilibrium efficient frontier data envelopment analysis (EEFDEA) approach (Yang et al., 2014) represents a step forward in evaluating decision-making units (DMUs) with fixed-sum outputs when compared to prior approaches such as FSODEA (fixed-sum outputs DEA) approach (Yang et al., 2011) and ZSG-DEA (zero sum gains DEA) approach (Lins et al., 2003) and so on. Based on the EEFDEA approach, in this paper, we proposed a generalized equilibrium efficient frontier data envelopment analysis approach (GEEFDEA) which improves and strengthens the EEFDEA approach. Compared to EEFDEA approach, this approach makes several improvements in evaluation, namely that (1) it is not necessary to determine the evaluation order in advance, which overcomes the limitation that different evaluation orders will lead to different results; (2) the equilibrium efficient frontier can be achieved in only one step no matter how many DMUs they are, which greatly simplifies the procedure to reach the equilibrium efficient frontier especially when the number of DMUs is large; and (3) the constraint that signs of outputs’ adjustment of each DMU must be same (all non-positive or all non-negative) in prior approaches has been relaxed. In this sense, the result obtained by the proposed approach is more consistent with the demand of practical applications. Finally, the proposed approach combined with assurance regions (AR) is applied to the data set of 2012 London Olympic Games.