Assessing the efficiency of mother-to-child HIV prevention in low- and middle-income countries using data envelopment analysis

AIDS is one of the most significant health care problems worldwide. Due to the difficulty and costs involved in treating HIV, preventing infection is of paramount importance in controlling the AIDS epidemic. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to establish international comparisons on the efficiency of implementation of HIV prevention programmes. To do this we use data from 52 low- and middle-income countries regarding the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Our results indicate that there is a remarkable variation in the efficiency of prevention services across nations, suggesting that a better use of resources could lead to more and improved services, and ultimately, prevent the infection of thousands of children. These results also demonstrate the potential strategic role of DEA for the efficient and effective planning of scarce resources to fight the epidemic

Efficiency measurement in the Spanish cadastral units through DEA

This paper proposes an approach to measure efficiency of a set of units operating in an administrative public service, namely real estate cadastral offices, which have not been analysed previously. This study has been made possible thanks to the database provided by the Directorate General of Real Estate Cadastral Assessment which includes information on the 52 local offices in Spain for the period between 2000 and 2005. Data Envelopment Analysis has been used to estimate the efficiency levels of these offices. Subsequently, a second stage model based on bootstrap techniques is applied in order to identify other potential factors (differences in management techniques, demographic and economic variables, etc.) that may affect the estimated efficiency measures

A conditional directional distance function approach for measuring tax collection efficiency: evidence from Spanish regional offices

This paper analyzes the evolution of the technical efficiency of Spanish regional tax offices with respect to the main devolved taxes for the period 2005–2014. We apply the conditional directional distance function methodology, which allows us to incorporate undesirable outputs into the production function, represented by administrative complaints lodged by taxpayers as an (inverse) measure of the quality of service provision, and account for the influence of the socioeconomic context in which these offices operate. This methodology has been adapted for application in a dynamic context in order to analyze how the performance of these units has evolved over a period that includes different stages of the economic cycle. The main results show that efficiency levels have fallen over the period, especially since the start of the economic recession. Likewise, we identify that the influence of incomes and fiscal capacity are especially significant explanatory factors of this evolution. © 2018 The Authors. International Transactions in Operational Research © 2018 International Federation of Operational Research Societie

Eficiencia en educación secundaria e inputs no controlables: sensibilidad de los resultados ante modelos alternativos

El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar la sensibilidad de los índices de eficiencia estimados para los distintos centros educativos a las diferentes alternativas propuestas en la literatura para incluir los factores exógenos en los análisis de eficiencia. Concretamente, nos centraremos en dos cuestiones fundamentales. Por un lado, aunque se dispone de una gran cantidad de datos representativos de estas variables obtenidos mediante unas encuestas realizadas en los centros, no resulta posible utilizar toda esta información, por lo que se considera la posibilidad de incluir directamente las variables más relevantes en el análisis de eficiencia o, alternativamente, utilizar la técnica de componentes principales para sintetizar la información recogida en dichas variables. Por otro lado, se plantean dos opciones metodológicas para incluir estos factores en las evaluaciones de eficiencia, comparando el enfoque que considera que estos factores deben tenerse en cuenta para calcular directamente los índices de eficiencia definitivos y la alternativa de los estudios multietápicos. El análisis se ha realizado para 79 centros públicos de la Comunidad Autónoma extremeña en el curso 2001-2002

An MOLP based procedure for finding efficient units in DEA models

Data envelopment analysis, Multiple objective linear programming, Linear programming,

Measuring efficiency in education: an analysis of different approaches for incorporating non-discretionary inputs

Measuring efficiency in the education sector is a highly complex task. One of the reasons is that the main resource of schools (the type of students they have) lie outside of their control, which means that it must be treated differently to other factors in analysis. This study examines the different options available in the literature for incorporating non-controllable inputs in a data envelopment analysis in order to determine the most appropriate model for evaluating schools. Our empirical study presents the results obtained using the model proposed by Fried et al. (1999), though we use bootstrap techniques to avoid problems of bias in the estimations.