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Graduation Rates and Accountability: Regressions versus Production Frontiers

Author

Listed:
  • Robert B. Archibald

    (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)

  • David H. Feldman

    (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)

Abstract

This paper suggests an alternative to the standard practice of measuring the graduation rate performance using regression analysis. The alternative is production frontier analysis. Production frontier analysis is appealing because it compares an institutions graduation rate to the best performance instead of the average performance. The paper explains the differences between these two types of analysis and provides examples of their application using data for 187 national universities.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert B. Archibald & David H. Feldman, 2006. "Graduation Rates and Accountability: Regressions versus Production Frontiers," Working Papers 24, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwm:wpaper:24
    as

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    File URL: http://economics.wm.edu/wp/cwm_wp24.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Coelli, T. J., 1992. "A computer program for frontier production function estimation : Frontier version 2.0," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 29-32, May.
    4. 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.
    5. William D. Mangold & Luann Bean & Douglas Adams, 2003. "The Impact of Intercollegiate Athletics on Graduation Rates among Major NCAA Division I Universities," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 74(5), pages 540-562, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. BERBEGAL MIRABENT, Jasmina & SOLÉ PARELLADA, Francesc, 2012. "What Are We Measuring When Evaluating Universities’ Efficiency?," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 12(3).
    2. Mutz, Rüdiger & Bornmann, Lutz & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2017. "Are there any frontiers of research performance? Efficiency measurement of funded research projects with the Bayesian stochastic frontier analysis for count data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 613-628.
    3. Javier García-Estévez & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2012. "Student graduation: to what extent does university expenditure matter?," Working Papers 2012/4, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    4. 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.
    5. Javier García-Estévez & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2012. "Student graduation: to what extent does university expenditure matter?," Working Papers 2012/4, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Efficiency frontiers; graduation rates; higher education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General

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