IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jorssa/v171y2008i2p433-448.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A response to M. Stone: ‘How not to measure the efficiency of public services (and how one might)’

Author

Listed:
  • W. W. Cooper
  • Subhash C. Ray

Abstract

Summary. This is a response to Stone's criticisms of the Spottiswoode report to the UK Treasury which was responding to the Treasury's request for improved methods to evaluate the efficiency and productivity of the 43 police districts in England and Wales. The Spottiswoode report recommended uses of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), which Stone critiqued en route to proposing an alternative approach. Here we note some of the most serious errors in his criticism and inaccurate portrayals of DEA and SFA. Most of our attention is devoted to DEA, and to Stone's recommended alternative approach without much attention to SFA, partly because of his abbreviated discussion of the latter. In our response we attempt to be constructive as well as critical by showing how Stone's proposed approach can be joined to DEA to expand his proposal beyond limitations in his formulations.

Suggested Citation

  • W. W. Cooper & Subhash C. Ray, 2008. "A response to M. Stone: ‘How not to measure the efficiency of public services (and how one might)’," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 171(2), pages 433-448, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:171:y:2008:i:2:p:433-448
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-985X.2007.00512.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2007.00512.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2007.00512.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ray,Subhash C., 2012. "Data Envelopment Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107405264, September.
    2. Hughes, Andrew & Yaisawarng, Suthathip, 2004. "Sensitivity and dimensionality tests of DEA efficiency scores," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(2), pages 410-422, April.
    3. 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.
    4. Yoram Wind & Thomas L. Saaty, 1980. "Marketing Applications of the Analytic Hierarchy Process," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(7), pages 641-658, July.
    5. Mervyn Stone, 2005. "Accumulating Evidence of Malfunctioning Contractual Government Machinery," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 82-86, April.
    6. William W. Cooper & Kyung Sam Park & Gang Yu, 2001. "An Illustrative Application of Idea (Imprecise Data Envelopment Analysis) to a Korean Mobile Telecommunication Company," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 49(6), pages 807-820, December.
    7. Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 1995. "Assessing police forces in England and Wales using data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 641-657, December.
    8. Takamura, Yoshiharu & Tone, Kaoru, 2003. "A comparative site evaluation study for relocating Japanese government agencies out of Tokyo," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 85-102, June.
    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. Bok Baik & Joon Chae & Sunhwa Choi & David B. Farber, 2013. "Changes in Operational Efficiency and Firm Performance: A Frontier Analysis Approach," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 996-1026, September.
    2. Vincenzo Patrizii & Giuliano Resce, 2015. "Public Sector Contribution To Competitiveness," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(3), pages 401-443, November.

    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. Rolf Färe & Xinju He & Sungko Li & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2019. "A Unifying Framework for Farrell Profit Efficiency Measurement," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 183-197, January.
    2. Kong, Wei-Hsin & Fu, Tsu-Tan, 2012. "Assessing the performance of business colleges in Taiwan using data envelopment analysis and student based value-added performance indicators," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 541-549.
    3. Lai, Po‐Lin & Potter, Andrew & Beynon, Malcolm & Beresford, Anthony, 2015. "Evaluating the efficiency performance of airports using an integrated AHP/DEA-AR technique," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 75-85.
    4. Salvatore Greco & Alessio Ishizaka & Menelaos Tasiou & Gianpiero Torrisi, 2019. "On the Methodological Framework of Composite Indices: A Review of the Issues of Weighting, Aggregation, and Robustness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 61-94, January.
    5. Ruiz, José L. & Segura, José V. & Sirvent, Inmaculada, 2015. "Benchmarking and target setting with expert preferences: An application to the evaluation of educational performance of Spanish universities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 242(2), pages 594-605.
    6. Seyed Saeed Hosseinian & Hamidreza Navidi & Abas Hajfathaliha, 2012. "A New Linear Programming Method for Weights Generation and Group Decision Making in the Analytic Hierarchy Process," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 233-254, May.
    7. Lin, Ming-Ian & Lee, Yuan-Duen & Ho, Tsai-Neng, 2011. "Applying integrated DEA/AHP to evaluate the economic performance of local governments in China," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 209(2), pages 129-140, March.
    8. Mohammad Pakkar, 2015. "An integrated approach based on DEA and AHP," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 153-169, January.
    9. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2015. "Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization," OSF Preprints qsf6d, Center for Open Science.
    10. Seyed Amir Nasri & Behdad Ehsani & Seyed Javad Hosseininezhad & Nasser Safaie, 2023. "A sustainable supplier selection method using integrated Fuzzy DEMATEL–ANP–DEA approach (case study: Petroleum Industry)," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(11), pages 12791-12827, November.
    11. Lee, Hakyeon & Park, Yongtae & Choi, Hoogon, 2009. "Comparative evaluation of performance of national R&D programs with heterogeneous objectives: A DEA approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 196(3), pages 847-855, August.
    12. Maryam Bagherikahvarin & Yves Smet, 2017. "Determining new possible weight values in PROMETHEE: a procedure based on data envelopment analysis," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(5), pages 484-495, May.
    13. Pishchulov, Grigory & Trautrims, Alexander & Chesney, Thomas & Gold, Stefan & Schwab, Leila, 2019. "The Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process revisited: A revised method with application to sustainable supplier selection," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 166-179.
    14. Denys Yemshanov & Frank H. Koch & Yakov Ben‐Haim & Marla Downing & Frank Sapio & Marty Siltanen, 2013. "A New Multicriteria Risk Mapping Approach Based on a Multiattribute Frontier Concept," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(9), pages 1694-1709, September.
    15. Augustyniak, Wojciech & López-Torres, Laura & Kalinowski, Sławomir, 2015. "Performance of Polish regional airports after accessing the European Union: Does liberalisation impact on airports' efficiency?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 11-19.
    16. Seyed Rakhshan & Ali Kamyad & Sohrab Effati, 2015. "Ranking decision-making units by using combination of analytical hierarchical process method and Tchebycheff model in data envelopment analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 226(1), pages 505-525, March.
    17. Subhash C. Ray & Lei Chen, 2015. "Data Envelopment Analysis for Performance Evaluation: A Child’s Guide," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Subal C. Kumbhakar & Pami Dua (ed.), Benchmarking for Performance Evaluation, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 75-116, Springer.
    18. Luis Pérez-Domínguez & Luis Alberto Rodríguez-Picón & Alejandro Alvarado-Iniesta & David Luviano Cruz & Zeshui Xu, 2018. "MOORA under Pythagorean Fuzzy Set for Multiple Criteria Decision Making," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-10, April.
    19. Botti, Laurent & Briec, Walter & Cliquet, Gérard, 2009. "Plural forms versus franchise and company-owned systems: A DEA approach of hotel chain performance," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 566-578, June.
    20. Greco, Salvatore & Ishizaka, Alessio & Tasiou, Menelaos & Torrisi, Gianpiero, 2018. "σ-µ efficiency analysis: A new methodology for evaluating units through composite indices," MPRA Paper 83569, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    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:bla:jorssa:v:171:y:2008:i:2:p:433-448. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rssssea.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.