Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> Abstract A nonlinear (nonconvex) programming model provides a new definition of efficiency for use in evaluating activities of not-for-profit entities participating in public programs. A scalar measure of the efficiency of each participating unit is thereby provided, along with methods for objectively determining weights by reference to the observational data for the multiple outputs and multiple inputs that characterize such programs. Equivalences are established to ordinary linear programming models for effecting computations. The duals to these linear programming models provide a new way for estimating extremal relations from observational data. Connections between engineering and economic approaches to efficiency are delineated along with new interpretations and ways of using them in evaluating and controlling managerial behavior in public programs. <s> BIB001 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> A taxonomy of literature reviews in education and psychology is presented. The taxonomy categorizes reviews according to: (a) focus; (b) goal; (c) perspective; (d) coverage; (e) organization; and (f) audience. The seven winners of the American Educational Research Association’s Research Review Award are used to illustrate the taxonomy’s categories. Data on the reliability of taxonomy codings when applied by readers is presented. Results of a survey of review authors provides baseline data on how frequently different types of reviews appear in the education and psychology literature. How the taxonomy might help in judging the quality of literature reviews is discussed, along with more general standards for evaluating reviews. <s> BIB002 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> The purpose of this paper is to briefly trace the evolution of DEA from the initial publication by Charnes et al. (1978b) to the current state of the art (SOA). The state of development of DEA is characterized at four points in time to provide a perspective in both directions—past and future. An evolution map is provided which illustrates DEA growth during the 17-year period, the timing of the major events, and the interconnections and influences between topics. An extensive DEA bibliography is provided. <s> BIB003 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> Preface G. Kozmetsky. Part I: Concepts, Models & Computation. 1. Introduction. 2. Basic DEA Models. 3. Extensions to DEA Models. 4. Computational Aspects of DEA A. Iqbal Ali. 5. DEA Software Packages. Part II: Novel Applications. 6. Evaluating the Impacts of Operating Strategies on Efficiency in the U.S. Airline Industry R.D. Banker, H.H. Johnston. 7. Analyzing Technical and Allocative Efficiency of Hospitals P. Byrnes, V. Valdmanis. 8. A Multi Period Analysis of Market Segments and Brand Efficiency in the Competitive Carbonated Beverage Industry A. Charnes, W.w. Cooper, B. Golanyi, F.Y. Phillips, J.J. Rousseau. 9. Exploring why Some Physicians' Hospital Practices are More Efficient: Taking DEA Inside the Hospital J. Chilingerian. 10. On the Measurement and Monitoring of Relative Efficiency of Highway Maintenance Patrols W.D. Cook, A. Kazakov, Y. Roll. 11. Strategic Leaders in the U.S. Brewing Industry: a Longitudinal Analysis of Outliers D. Day, A.Y. Lewin, R. Salazar, Hongyu Li. 12. A Spatial Efficiency Framework for the Support of Locational Decision A. Desai, K. Haynes, J. Storbeck. 13. Productivity Developments in Swedish Hospitals: a Malmquist Output Index Approach R. Fare, S. Grosskopf, B. Lindgren, P. Roos. 14. Ownership Type, Property Rights and Relative Efficiency G. Ferrier. 15. A Comparative Analysis of Ferry Transport in Norway F.R. Forsund, E. Hernaes. 16. Incorporating Standards via Data Envelopment Analysis B. Golany, Y. Roll. 17.Stratified Models of Education Production Using Modified DEA and Regression Analysis C.A. Knox Lovell, L.C. Walters, L.L. Woods. 18. The Problems of New and Disappearing Commodities in the Construction of Price Indexes C.A. Knox Lovell, K.D. Zieschang. 19. Evaluating the Relative Efficiency of Baseball Players? M.J. Mazur. 20. Sensitivity Analysis of Efficiency Measures with Applications to Kansas Farming and Illinois Coal Mining R. Thompson, P.S. Dharmapala, R.M. Thrall. Part III: Epilogue: Process and Bibliography. 21. The DEA Process, Usages and Interpretations. 22. DEA Bibliography L.M. Seiford. References. Index. <s> BIB004 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> In this chapter, we described a Bayesian approach to efficiency analysis using stochastic frontier models. With cross-sectional data and a log-linear frontier, a simple Gibbs sampler can be used to carry out Bayesian inference. In the case of a nonlinear frontier, more complicated posterior simulation methods are necessary. Bayesian efficiency measurement with panel data is then discussed. We show how a Bayesian analogue of the classical fixed effects panel data model can be used to calculate the efficiency of each firm relative to the most efficient firm. However, absolute efficiency calculations are precluded in this model and inference on efficiencies can be quite sensitive to prior assumptions. Accordingly, we describe a Bayesian analogue of the classical random effects panel data model which can be used for robust inference on absolute efficiencies. Throughout, we emphasize the computational methods necessary to carry out Bayesian inference. We show how random number generation from well-known distributions is sufficient to develop posterior simulators for a wide variety of models. <s> BIB005 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> Periodically, professionals in a given field must reflect and assess where the field has been, where it is heading, and what if anything, should be done to change that field's course. This article discusses statistical trends within the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) literature. The number of articles published per year in refereed journals over the entire lifespan of the field, authorship and publishing outlets-of-choice statistics are used to indicate DEA's vitality, relevance, diffusion to other disciplines/professions and its worldwide acceptance. Lastly, based on published meta reviews, comparisons are made with other OR/MS sub-disciplines. <s> BIB006 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> This paper presents a scheme for classifying the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) literature. The taxonomy allows one to distinguish articles on the basis of the data source used (D) if any, the type of envelopment (E) invoked, the approach to analysis (A) used, and the nature (N) of the paper. Each of the above attributes D, E, A and N (DEAN) are further subdivided to obtain a detailed description of each article comprising this rather wide-ranging field of knowledge. Sample articles are classified to illustrate the descriptive power and the parsimony of this taxonomy. <s> BIB007 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> Since the original Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) study by Charnes et al. [Measuring the efficiency of decision-making units. European Journal of Operational Research 1978;2(6):429-44], there has been rapid and continuous growth in the field. As a result, a considerable amount of published research has appeared, with a significant portion focused on DEA applications of efficiency and productivity in both public and private sector activities. While several bibliographic collections have been reported, a comprehensive listing and analysis of DEA research covering its first 30 years of history is not available. This paper thus presents an extensive, if not nearly complete, listing of DEA research covering theoretical developments as well as "real-world" applications from inception to the year 2007. A listing of the most utilized/relevant journals, a keyword analysis, and selected statistics are presented. <s> BIB008 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> This study surveys the data envelopment analysis (DEA) literature by applying a citation-based approach. The main goals are to find a set of papers playing the central role in DEA development and to discover the latest active DEA subareas. A directional network is constructed based on citation relationships among academic papers. After assigning an importance index to each link in the citation network, main DEA development paths emerge. We examine various types of main paths, including local main path, global main path, and multiple main paths. The analysis result suggests, as expected, that Charnes et al. (1978) [Charnes A, Cooper WW, Rhodes E. Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research 1978; 2(6): 429–444] is the most influential DEA paper. The five most active DEA subareas in recent years are identified; among them the “two-stage contextual factor evaluation framework” is relatively more active. Aside from the main path analysis, we summarize basic statistics on DEA journals and researchers. A growth curve analysis hints that the DEA literature’s size will eventually grow to at least double the size of the existing literature. <s> BIB009 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> This study surveys the increasing research field of performance measurement by making use of a bibliometric literature analysis. We concentrate on two approaches, namely Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) as the most important methods to evaluate the efficiency of individual and organizational performance. It is the first literature survey that analyses DEA and SFA publications jointly, covering contributions published in journals, indexed by the Web of Science database from 1978 to 2012. Our aim is to identify seminal papers, playing a major role in DEA and SFA development and to determine areas of adoption. We recognized a constant growth of publications during the years identifying DEA as a standard technique in Operations Research, whereas SFA is mainly adopted in Economic research fields. Making use of document co-citation analysis we identify Airports and Supplier Selection (DEA) as well as Banking and Agriculture (SFA) as most influential application areas. Furthermore, Sensitivity and Fuzzy Set Theory (DEA) as well as Bayesian Analysis and Heterogeneity (SFA) are found to be most influential research areas and seem to be methodological trends. By developing an adoption rate of knowledge we identify that research, in terms of citations, is more focusing on relatively old and recent research at the expenses of middle-aged contributions, which is a typical phenomenon of a fast developing discipline. <s> BIB010 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> Research activities relating to data envelopment analysis (DEA) have grown at a fast rate recently. Exactly what activities have been carrying the research momentum forward is a question of particular interest to the research community. The purpose of this study is to find these research activities, or research fronts, in DEA. A research front refers to a coherent topic or issue addressed by a group of research articles in recent years. The large amount of DEA literature makes it difficult to use any traditional qualitative methodology to sort out the matter. Thus, this study applies a network clustering method to group the literature through a citation network established from the DEA literature over the period 2000 to 2014. The keywords of the articles in each discovered group help pinpoint its research focus. The four research fronts identified are “bootstrapping and two-stage analysis”, “undesirable factors”, “cross-efficiency and ranking”, and “network DEA, dynamic DEA, and SBM”. Each research front is then examined with key-route main path analysis to uncover the elements in its core. In addition to presenting the research fronts, this study also updates the main paths and author statistics of DEA development since its inception and compares them with those reported in a previous study. <s> BIB011 </s> Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review <s> Research Reviews in Context <s> This article reports the evolution of the literature on Dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis (DDEA) models from 1996 to 2016. Systematic searches in the databases Scopus and Web of Science were performed to outline the state of the art. The results enabled the establishment of DDEA studies as the scope of this article, analyzing the transition elements to represent temporal interdependence. The categorization of these studies enabled the mapping of the evolution of the DDEA literature and identification of the relationships between models. The three most widely adopted studies to conduct DDEA research were classified as structuring models. Mapping elucidated the literature behavior through three phases and showed an increase in publications with applications in recent years. The analysis of applications indicated that most studies address evaluations in the agriculture and farming, banking and energy sectors and consider the facilities as transition elements between analysis periods. <s> BIB012
Literature reviews are essential in the development and accumulation of scientific knowledge in each discipline and consist in a process of conducting surveys of previously published material. Literature reviews do not primarily develop new facts and findings, but focus on publications containing such primary information, whereby these publications are digested, classified, and synthesized (see  ). Various taxonomies of literature reviews are available in the literature. An interesting taxonomy is the one proposed by BIB002 that is intended to be applied to literature reviews appearing in both the behavioral and physical sciences. We focus only on the two characteristics of focus and goals. His first distinction among literature reviews concerns the focus of the review. Most literature reviews center on one or more of four areas: (i) the findings of individual primary studies, (ii) the methods used for carrying out the research, (iii) the theories that intend to explain the phenomena under examination, and (iv) the practices, programs, or treatments being used in an applied context. A second characteristic of a literature review is its goals. The most frequent goal for a review is to integrate past literature related to a common topic. Integration can involve formulating generalizations, resolving conflicts in the literature, and creating a new, common linguistic framework. For the remaining characteristics, the reader is referred to BIB002 for details. In the broad efficiency and productivity literature that is the focus of our study, there do clearly exist methodological and theoretical surveys (like BIB012 or BIB005 cited above and many others). However, our focus is on empirical surveys aimed at summarizing the findings of individual primary studies. Among these empirical surveys, it may be useful to distinguish between bibliographical and bibliometric studies: the first often contain merely a list of articles, books and book chapters eventually complemented with non-systematic and rather personal descriptions of evolutions in the literature; the latter contain some quantitative analysis based on a variety of methods. In the efficiency and productivity literature, bibliographical studies include the seminal efforts by BIB004 BIB003   and the work by  . Bibliometric studies started with the seminal work by BIB006 : these authors study the growth rate of this literature, the most important journals in terms of publication outlets, and the top authors in this field. In addition, the same authors compare this field with two others in the operations research-management science (OR/MS) subdisciplines: the frontier-based efficiency and productivity literature turn out to be much more vital in terms of growth. BIB008 review the literature in the first 30 years since the seminal article by BIB001 . Apart from also looking at the most important publication outlets as well as the top authors, these authors also study the distribution of page sizes of articles and the use of keywords.  basically update this same study after the first 40 years. BIB009 also study the growth rate of this literature and equally classify the top outlets and top researchers in the field. These same authors trace detailed citation networks and try to distinguish some of the key trajectories through the literature. Liu et al. (2013b) try to devise a classification of empirical applications using an ad hoc classification of sectors and trace the development path for the five major sectors. BIB010 is -to the best of our knowledge-the only survey that also considers SFA contributions: this methodology makes up a relatively small fraction of the total frontier-based efficiency and productivity literature. These authors also trace top outlets in the field and distinguish research clusters based on citation analysis. BIB011 try to delineate a series of new methodological research frontiers based on a powerful citation-based network clustering method. Finally, BIB007 can be mentioned for their attempt to propose a taxonomy to classify DEA articles, without considering SFA. However, to the best of our knowledge this classification has never been extensively used. Having reviewed these existing reviews, we are now capable to position our meta-survey within this broad field of frontier-based efficiency and productivity. Our meta-survey of empirical surveys of frontier estimation applications shares with BIB010 that we also include SFA-based articles, and it is distinct from Liu et al. (2013b) in that we do not use an ad hoc classification of sectors but instead employ UNESCO manual (2008).