Using non-radial DEA to assess school efficiency in a cross-country perspective: An empirical analysis of OECD countries

Abstract

In this paper we use data from OECD countries participating in PISA 2012 to assess the efficiency of schools in a cross-country framework. In the analysis, and in contrast to previous applications, we consider that schools might concentrate their efforts on improving the results in one dimension of the educational output to a greater extent than in the other. To do this, we rely on non-radial efficiency measures of performance and the estimation of an educational production function based upon Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques. Specifically, DEA non-radial measures allow for identifying different levels of inefficiency for each output considered (reading and maths). In particular, we apply a non-radial measure based on Ando et al. [5] and Aparicio et al. [12]. Our results show that the majority of schools in OECD countries tend to be less efficient in reading than in mathematics.