IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yor/yorken/15-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Convexity, Quality and Efficiency in Education

Author

Listed:
  • David J. Mayston

Abstract

While Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has many attractions as a technique for analysing the efficiency of educational organisations, such as schools and universities, its efficiency estimates are based upon the assumption that the output possibility set is convex. If this assumption does not hold, DEA may overstate the scope for improvements in technical efficiency through proportional increases in all educational outputs and understate the importance of improvements in allocative efficiency from changing the educational output mix. The paper therefore examines conditions under which such convexity may not hold, particularly when the performance and efficiency evaluation includes measures related to the assessed quality of the educational outputs, and the position of the school or university in national league tables. Under such conditions, there is a need to deploy other educational efficiency assessment tools, including an alternative non-parametric output-orientated technique and a more explicit valuation function for educational outputs.

Suggested Citation

  • David J. Mayston, 2015. "Convexity, Quality and Efficiency in Education," Discussion Papers 15/08, Department of Economics, University of York.
  • Handle: RePEc:yor:yorken:15/08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/discussionpapers/2015/1508.pdf
    File Function: Main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johnes, Jill, 2015. "Operational Research in education," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(3), pages 683-696.
    2. De Witte, Kristof & Rogge, Nicky & Cherchye, Laurens & Van Puyenbroeck, Tom, 2013. "Economies of scope in research and teaching: A non-parametric investigation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 305-314.
    3. Afonso, Antonio & St. Aubyn, Miguel, 2005. "Non-Parametric Approaches to Education and Health Efficiency in OECD Countries," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 8(2), pages 1-20, November.
    4. Antreas Athanassopoulos & Estelle Shale, 1997. "Assessing the Comparative Efficiency of Higher Education Institutions in the UK by the Means of Data Envelopment Analysis," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 117-134.
    5. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
    6. David J. Mayston, 2012. "Analysing the effectiveness of public service producers with endogenous resourcing," Discussion Papers 12/30, Department of Economics, University of York.
    7. 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.
    8. Izadi, Hooshang & Johnes, Geraint & Oskrochi, Reza & Crouchley, Robert, 2002. "Stochastic frontier estimation of a CES cost function: the case of higher education in Britain," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 63-71, February.
    9. Maria Alberta Oliveira & Carlos Santos, 2005. "Assessing school efficiency in Portugal using FDH and bootstrapping," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 957-968.
    10. Walter Briec & Kristiaan Kerstens & Philippe Venden Eeckaut, 2004. "Non-convex Technologies and Cost Functions: Definitions, Duality and Nonparametric Tests of Convexity," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 81(2), pages 155-192, February.
    11. Kevin Cullinane & Dong-Wook Song & Tengfei Wang, 2005. "The Application of Mathematical Programming Approaches to Estimating Container Port Production Efficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 73-92, September.
    12. J. Cummins & Hongmin Zi, 1998. "Comparison of Frontier Efficiency Methods: An Application to the U.S. Life Insurance Industry," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 131-152, October.
    13. Wanke, Peter F., 2012. "Efficiency of Brazil's airports: Evidences from bootstrapped DEA and FDH estimates," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 47-53.
    14. Halme, Merja & Korhonen, Pekka & Eskelinen, Juha, 2014. "Non-convex value efficiency analysis and its application to bank branch sales evaluation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 10-18.
    15. Herbert W. Marsh & John Hattie, 2002. "The Relation between Research Productivity and Teaching Effectiveness," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(5), pages 603-641, September.
    16. M. J. Farrell, 1959. "The Convexity Assumption in the Theory of Competitive Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(4), pages 377-377.
    17. Balaguer-Coll, Maria Teresa & Prior, Diego & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2007. "On the determinants of local government performance: A two-stage nonparametric approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 425-451, February.
    18. David J. Mayston, 2014. "Effectiveness analysis of quality achievements for university Departments of Economics," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(31), pages 3788-3797, November.
    19. Jacobsen, S E, 1970. "Production Correspondences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(5), pages 754-771, September.
    20. Borger, Bruno De & Ferrier, Gary D. & Kerstens, Kristiaan, 1998. "The choice of a technical efficiency measure on the free disposal hull reference technology: A comparison using US banking data," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 427-446, March.
    21. 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.
    22. Maria Silva Portela & Pedro Borges & Emmanuel Thanassoulis, 2003. "Finding Closest Targets in Non-Oriented DEA Models: The Case of Convex and Non-Convex Technologies," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 251-269, April.
    23. Johnes, Jill & Johnes, Geraint, 1995. "Research funding and performance in U.K. University Departments of Economics: A frontier analysis," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 301-314, September.
    24. 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.
    25. David Mayston, 2015. "Analysing the effectiveness of public service producers with endogenous resourcing," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 115-126, August.
    26. VANDEN EECKAUT, Philippe & TULKENS, Henry & JAMAR, Marie-Astrid, 1993. "Cost efficiency in Belgian municipalities," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1033, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    27. B. C. Eaton & Richard G. Lipsey, 1997. "On the Foundations of Monopolistic Competition and Economic Geography," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1233.
    28. Hasenkamp, Georg, 1976. "A study of multiple-output production functions : Klein's railroad study revisited," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 253-262, August.
    29. Tone, Kaoru, 2001. "A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 498-509, May.
    30. 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.
    31. Herbert E. Scarf, 2008. "Production Sets with Indivisibilities Part II. The Case of Two Activities," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Zaifu Yang (ed.), Herbert Scarf’s Contributions to Economics, Game Theory and Operations Research, chapter 3, pages 39-67, Palgrave Macmillan.
    32. William W. Cooper & Lawrence M. Seiford & Kaoru Tone, 2007. "Data Envelopment Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-0-387-45283-8, March.
    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. Delimiro Visbal-Cadavid & Mónica Martínez-Gómez & Francisco Guijarro, 2017. "Assessing the Efficiency of Public Universities through DEA. A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-19, 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. 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.
    2. Kristiaan Kerstens & Ignace Van de Woestyne, 2021. "Cost functions are nonconvex in the outputs when the technology is nonconvex: convexification is not harmless," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 305(1), pages 81-106, October.
    3. Cesaroni, Giovanni & Kerstens, Kristiaan & Van de Woestyne, Ignace, 2017. "Global and local scale characteristics in convex and nonconvex nonparametric technologies: A first empirical exploration," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 259(2), pages 576-586.
    4. Kristiaan Kerstens & Ignace Van de Woestyne, 2018. "Enumeration algorithms for FDH directional distance functions under different returns to scale assumptions," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 271(2), pages 1067-1078, December.
    5. David J. Mayston, 2017. "Data envelopment analysis, endogeneity and the quality frontier for public services," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 250(1), pages 185-203, March.
    6. Walter Briec & Kristiaan Kerstens, 2006. "Input, output and graph technical efficiency measures on non-convex FDH models with various scaling laws: An integrated approach based upon implicit enumeration algorithms," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 14(1), pages 135-166, June.
    7. J. Vakili & R. Sadighi Dizaji, 2021. "The closest strong efficient targets in the FDH technology: an enumeration method," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 91-105, April.
    8. Gralka, Sabine, 2018. "Stochastic frontier analysis in higher education: A systematic review," CEPIE Working Papers 05/18, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    9. Aparicio, Juan & Cordero, Jose M. & Gonzalez, Martin & Lopez-Espin, Jose J., 2018. "Using non-radial DEA to assess school efficiency in a cross-country perspective: An empirical analysis of OECD countries," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 9-20.
    10. Walter Briec & Kristiaan Kerstens & Ignace Van de Woestyne, 2022. "Nonconvexity in Production and Cost Functions: An Exploratory and Selective Review," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 18, pages 721-754, Springer.
    11. Aparicio, Juan & Cordero, Jose M. & Pastor, Jesus T., 2017. "The determination of the least distance to the strongly efficient frontier in Data Envelopment Analysis oriented models: Modelling and computational aspects," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-10.
    12. Víctor Giménez & Claudio Thieme & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2017. "An international comparison of educational systems: a temporal analysis in presence of bad outputs," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 83-101, February.
    13. David Mayston, "undated". "Analysing the Research and Teaching Quality Achievement Frontier," Discussion Papers 11/25, Department of Economics, University of York.
    14. Camanho, Ana Santos & Silva, Maria Conceicao & Piran, Fabio Sartori & Lacerda, Daniel Pacheco, 2024. "A literature review of economic efficiency assessments using Data Envelopment Analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 315(1), pages 1-18.
    15. Rafael Benítez & Vicente Coll-Serrano & Vicente J. Bolós, 2021. "deaR-Shiny: An Interactive Web App for Data Envelopment Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-19, June.
    16. Cossani, Gianfranco & Codoceo, Loreto & Cáceres, Hernán & Tabilo, Jorge, 2022. "Technical efficiency in Chile’s higher education system: A comparison of rankings and accreditation," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    17. Evelin Krmac & Mozhgan Mansouri Kaleibar, 2023. "A comprehensive review of data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology in port efficiency evaluation," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 25(4), pages 817-881, December.
    18. Manuel Salas-Velasco, 2020. "Measuring and explaining the production efficiency of Spanish universities using a non-parametric approach and a bootstrapped-truncated regression," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 825-846, February.
    19. 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.
    20. Jill Johnes & Maria Portela & Emmanuel Thanassoulis, 2017. "Efficiency in education," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(4), pages 331-338, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Data envelopment analysis; quality; education; efficiency analysis; allocative efficiency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:yor:yorken:15/08. 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: Paul Hodgson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deyoruk.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.