engleski

How efficient are counties in the Croatian river Drava basin region? Reviewing Data Envelopment Analysis applications

This paper surveys and presents the applications of the mathematical programming methodology, the Data Envelopment Analysis (hereafter DEA) in the evaluation and measurement of the efficiency and performance of Croatian counties. The aim of this article is to present and analyse the findings regarding the efficiency and performance of counties in the Croatian river Drava basin region (which are Koprivnica – Križevci, Virovitica – Podravina and Međimurje County) and to provide conclusions regarding this region and its regional efficiency. Other goals of this article are to introduce and provide a theoretical background to the DEA methodology as one of the most popular non-parametric methods in efficiency evaluation since its introduction in the revolutionary paper by Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes in 1978. This article conducts an in- depth extensive literature review of studies employing the DEA methodology in efficiency evaluation of Croatian counties. The authors have surveyed the Scopus, Web of Science (SSCI and SCI papers) and CROSBI (Croatian Scientific Bibliography) databases using „CROATIA“, „COUNTY“ and „DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS“ as keywords for the survey. This has resulted in 7 hits in Scopus, 15 on Web of Science and 11 on CROSBI, which ultimately led to a total of 12 papers. This study furthermore reveals the previous work regarding the efficiency of counties in the river Drava basin region as well as an in- depth analysis of their used models, the variable set and their findings. The findings reveal different aspects of efficiency evaluation of Croatian counties with a special focus on counties in the river Drava basin region. Koprivnica – Križevci and Virovitica – Podravina counties have shown high environmental and total-factor energy efficiency, but were least efficient in entrepreneurship and social services for the elderly, respectively. According to the obtained results, Međimurje County is the least efficient county in the analysed region. Moreover, the three analysed Drava basin region counties in most studies show technical inefficiency and efficiency scores below the average. In this sense, counties need to take into consideration these findings and benchmark and copy the best practices from the highly efficient Croatian counties.

County ; Northern Croatia ; River Drava basin region ; Relative Efficiency ; Data Envelopment Analysis ; Regional Efficiency

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