The aim of the paper is to introduce an application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for benchmarking the efficiency of (tourism) service production processes on the level of tourism destinations. After a brief discussion of the latest benchmarking research studies in tourism, an efficiency model for tourism service processes will be developed (Parasuraman 2002). The latter postulates simulta...

The operational performance of container ports has received more and more attentions in both academic and practitioner circles, the performance evaluation and process improvement of container ports have also been the focus of several studies. In this paper, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), an effective tool for relative efficiency assessment, is utilized for measuring the performances and bench...

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has proven to be a useful tool for assessing efficiency or productivity of organizations, which is of vital practical importance in managerial decision making. DEA provides a significant amount of information from which analysts and managers derive insights and guidelines to promote their existing performances. Regarding to this fact, effective and methodologic a...

Yardstick regulation requires the utilization of benchmarking, a valuable tool for improving public service delivery, especially in developing countries where inefficiencies translate into negative health impacts and social unrest. However, benchmarking must account for both the cost and the quality of service. Using data from 38 Peruvian water utilities (1996 to 2001), the paper evaluates qual...

The objective of this paper is to inform the debate on how efficiency targets for Network Rail (formerly Railtrack) should be set during the 2002/03 Interim Review and beyond. Given the problems experienced during the 2000 Periodic Review, which focused on external benchmarks, we propose an internal benchmarking approach, drawing on data for seven geographical Zones within Railtrack (over the p...

This paper aims to provide a new methodological and empirical contribution to the rising literature on the relative performance and benchmarking of large cities in a competitive world. On the basis of a recent detailed database on many achievement criteria of 35 major cities in the world, it seeks to arrive at a relative performance ranking of these cities by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DE...

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), widely recognized as one the most important documents in foreign language teaching, defines levels communicative proficiency. common points reference are primarily meant to assist teachers and test developers striving adhere a unified understanding CEFR levels. Yet it is not uncommon among practitioners claim particular level task, text or samp...

In this paper we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate technical efficiency for a sample of 1742 Australian dairy farms. Bearing in mind data limitations we find that average technical efficiency is 59 per cent, but there are significant regional differences. These results reflect differences in State level milk marketing arrangements in place before dairy deregulation in July 2000 pr...

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is known as a nonparametric mathematical programming approach to productive efficiency analysis. In this paper we show that DEA can be alternatively interpreted as nonparametric least squares regression subject to shape constraints on frontier and sign constraints on residuals. This reinterpretation reveals the classic parametric programming model by Aigner and C...