engleski

Decomposing regional efficiency: The case of Croatian counties

A regional disparity is becoming increasingly important growth constraint. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology in this paper, the efficiency of Croatian counties is compared over the time period 2005-2010. Basing on seven socio-economic indicators and using models with assumption of constant and variable returns-to-scale, DEA identifies efficient counties as benchmark members. Moreover, inefficient counties are analyzed in detail to determine which resources and to what extent are inefficiently distributed and/or used. To enable longitudinal monitoring of development dynamics, window analysis is applied. The overall technical efficiency is decomposed into pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. The findings show large disparities among counties and the results suggest that on average all the counties have some degree of inefficiency which is less due to pure technical than to the scale effects. By identifying regional disparity determinants, the results obtained should assist policy makers in formulating the most beneficial regional policy decisions.

regional efficiency ; Croatian counties ; data envelopment analysis ; window analysis ; scale efficiency

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