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EWG EPA Efficiency and productivity analysis
Last update: 2010-02-02
Update
information
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| Web site: |
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| Coordinator: |
Dr Meryem Duygun Fethi |
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Efficiency & Productivity Research Unit
School of Management
Ken Edwards Building
University of Leicester
University Road
Leicester LE1 7RH
United Kingdom |
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| Coordinator: |
Dr Fotios Pasiouras |
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Assistant Professor
Financial Engineering Laboratory
Department of Production Engineering & Management
Technical University of Crete
University Campus
Chania, 73100
Greece |
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| Board: |
Meryem Duygun Fethi (Coordinator)
Fotis Pasiouras (Coordinator)
Barbara Casu
Laurens Cherchye
Claudia Cirardone
Chrysovalantis Gaganis
Tarja Joro
Maria Portela
Mohamed Shaban |
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| Members: |
The group has approximately 250 members. |
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Purpose and history
In July 1996, at the IFORS conference in Vancouver, the idea of a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) Euro Working Group emerged, from the realisation that so many people working in the field could profit from a forum where they could discuss their ideas and foster collaborative work.
DEA is the optimisation method that allows determining Farrell's (1957) technical efficiency measure easily in a multiple input and output case. Thus DEA became a new tool in for measuring technical efficiency. It was introduced by Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes (1978) with constant returns to scale, and was extended by Banker, Charnes and Cooper (1984) to include variable returns to scale. So the basic DEA models are known as CCR and BCC model.
Between 1978 and 1996 around 1000 articles, books and dissertation were published and listed in bibliographies. DEA rapidly extended to returns to scale, dummy or categorical variables, discretionary and non-discretionary variables, incorporating value judgements, longitudinal analysis, weight restrictions, stochastic DEA, non-parametric Malmquist indices, technical change in DEA and many other topics. DEA measure has been used to evaluate and compare educational departments (schools, colleges and universities), health care (hospitals, clinics), prisons, agricultural production, banking, armed forces, sports, market research, transportation, courts, benchmarking, index number construction and many other applications. Both researchers with background in operational research and economics have worked actively with DEA.
Based on the above, the EURO Working Group on DEA and Performance Measurement has been established in 1997, after an application to EURO Executive Committee. Many of the active members were participants of the Euro Summer Institute on DEA in Warwick in 1998. The activities have emphasised the integration of young researchers, especially graduate students to the DEA community. The main activity has been organising special workshops for young researchers in co-operation with established conferences European Workshop on Efficiency and Productivity Analysis and North American Productivity Workshop. In 2003 the working group decided to change its name to EURO Working Group on Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (EWG EPA). The new name covers better the research area, which includes different methodologies and researchers from different backgrounds.
As the community has expanded, researchers follow wide ranges of DEA and related topics. Lately some of the main research areas of DEA have been:
- Incorporating weights restrictions and judgement
- Longitudinal analysis e.g. non-parametric Malmquist indices
- Statistical properties of DEA
- Stochastic DEA
- Discretionary and non-discretionary variables.
The main objectives of the working group are to:
- Foster collaborative research between members from different institutions, countries, and professional backgrounds.
- Coordinate specialist publications of issues in the area.
- Organise specialist conferences and workshops, and high-quality conference streams in the area of efficiency and productivity analysis.
- Integrate Ph.D. students into the research community.
Past activities
The first working group meeting and seminar day was held in conjunction with the 6th European Workshop on Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (EWEPA)(Copenhagen, Denmark) in 1999. The 2000 and 2002 meeting and the pre/post conference workshop took place within the North American Productivity Workshop (NAPW)(Schnectady, NY, USA). The Workshop organisers provided funding for European graduate students to participate in the workshop. This funding was co-ordinated by the working group. In 2001 a group meeting was held within the 7th EWEPA (Oviedo, Spain). Conference organisers arranged a post conference workshop for young researchers.
In 2003, the working group organised a DEA tutorial at the EURO/INFORMS 2002 Conference in Istanbul. The tutorial was given by Prof. Emmanuel Thanassoulis. The Working group meeting took place within the 8th European Workshop on Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (Oviedo, Spain). A one-day pre-conference workshop was organised for young researchers and special funding was provided for graduate students.
Between 2003-2009, EWG EPA actively participated to the EWEPA and NAPW meetings and organised group meetings and Young Researchers' Sessions.
Future activities
EWG EPA will continue to organise pre- or post-conference workshops in conjunction with productivity workshops, NAPW and EWEPA which are held in North America and Europe respectively.
Possible projects for the longer term are
- Young Researchers's Session in 2 days Conference in Crete (Greece) during 2010
- EURO Summer Institute or a summer school for young researchers
- Workshops targeted at practitioners
- Mini EURO Conference
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