Handbook on Data Envelopment Analysis

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has grown into a powerful quantitative, analytical tool for measuring and evaluating performance. It has been successfully applied to a host of different entities engaged in a wide variety of activities in many contexts worldwide. DEA's "data-oriented" approach has been widely used in evaluating the efficiency and productivity of many different kinds of entities engaged in many different kinds of activities in many different contexts. DEA opens up possibilities for use in cases which have been resistant to other approaches because of the complex and often unknown nature of the relationships between their many activities. In addition, DEA is used to provide new insights into activities and entities that have previously been evaluated by other methods.

This Handbook has been developed as a comprehensive reference for researchers, students and practitioners. It reflects the state-of-the-art in Data Envelopment Analysis. It also represents a milestone in the progression of a continuously advancing methodology. which has extensive utility. Written by experts - who are the major research contributors to the topics covered - the Handbook is organized in three sections. The first section is a comprehensive examination of the basic DEA models and DEA extensions. The second section consists of a collection of coverages by persons experienced in applications to the areas of banking, education, sports, retailing, health care, etc. The final section is a review of current DEA software technology.