Measuring the efficiency of the Colombian higher education system: a two-stage approach

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of the Colombian higher education system, differentiating between public and private universities. Design/methodology/approach A data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is applied to separately and jointly evaluate the teaching and research efficiencies of universities. The empirical application considers a sample of 78 Colombian universities across the period 2015–2017. A two-stage DEA is performed in which DEA scores are first evaluated and then regressed on potential covariates via truncated regression. Findings Public universities outperform their private counterparts in terms of teaching and research efficiency, whereas private universities have higher global efficiency. Furthermore, the proportion of PhD faculty positively impacts all dimensions of efficiency and in fact is the only variable improving research efficiency. Research limitations/implications First, the data do not permit a direct analysis of the impact of improvements in resources or capabilities on knowledge transfer. Second, policies and their efficiency may be influenced by differences in cultural contexts, regulatory frameworks and knowledge transfer activities. Finally, the country specificity of this research study calls for obvious caution when generalizing and interpreting its findings. Practical implications The analysis of this data set will help decision and policy makers identify resources that are used efficiently by universities and interventions for improving resource management by inefficient universities. Originality/value Few studies have addressed the efficiency of higher education in developing economies. This paper contributes to the literature by applying a two-stage methodological approach to estimate the efficiency of Colombian universities and provide a better understanding of the factors driving university efficiency.

Measuring the efficiency of university departments: an empirical study using data envelopment analysis and cluster analysis

“…In the literature, two types of efficiency evaluations at the university level have been extensively discussed (for example, Abbott & Doucouliagos, 2003;Kao & Hung, 2008;Sellers-Rubio, Mas-Ruiz, & Casado-Díaz, 2010;Agasisti & Wolszczak-Derlacz, 2015). The first type compares the efficiency of different universities; for example, in the last five years, such studies have included Lee and Worthington (2016), Sagarra et al (2017), Visbal-Cadavid et al (2017, Guironnet and Peypoch (2018), Klumpp (2018), Quiroga-Martinez et al (2018, Yang et al (2018), Hou et al (2019, Moreno-Gómez et al (2019), Koçak et al (2019), Shamohammadi and Oh (2019), Dumitrescu et al (2020), Łącka and Brzezicki (2020), Moncayo-Martínez et al (2020), Salas-Velasco (2020), Tran et al (2020), andZhang et al (2020). The second type of efficiency evaluation compares the efficiency of different departments within a university, such as in the studies of Sinuany-Stern et al (1994), Gander (1995), Kao and Hung (2008), Barra and Zotti (2016), Ding et al (2020), andGhasemi et al (2020).…”

Two-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis Models with Negative System Outputs for the Efficiency Evaluation of Government Financial Policies

“…Problem (18) determines the minimal distance between point (X p , Y p ) and set T + according to the infinity norm along the direction d 2 . Observe that the finite solution of problem (18) exists for some direction d 2 , but not for any direction.…”

“…In the simplest case, a production facility can be considered as a system or process consisting of two subsystems/sub-processes interconnected by so-called intermediate outputs: the outputs of the first stage, which are also the inputs of the second stage. This approach is currently quite popular and is practiced for modeling the efficiency of banks [4][5][6][7], insurance companies [8][9][10], innovative and high-tech enterprises [11][12][13], production and logistics chains [14][15][16], educational and medical institutions [17][18][19][20][21], and many other types of economic units.…”

Gestión pública o privada de las universidades: ¿Cuál es la opción más eficiente para una política pública en educación superior en Colombia?

“…En Colombia también se han realizado diversos análisis en torno a este tema, aunque han tendido a centrarse en las universidades públicas, como son los casos de González, Ramoni y Orlandoni (2017), Soto-Mejía, Arenas-Valencia y Trejos (2005), y Visbal-Cadavid, Mendoza y Causado-Rodríguez (2016), y Ramírez-Gutiérrez et al (2020). Solo los estudios de Melo-Becerra, Ramos-Forero y Hernández-Santamaría (2017) y Moreno-Gómez, J., Calleja-Blanco, J., & Moreno Gómez, G. C. (2019) plantean una investigación comparativa entre las universidades públicas y privadas de Colombia. Entre sus principales conclusiones, los autores resaltan que las mejoras en los niveles de eficiencia de las IES se ven restringidos por la influencia que tienen los factores del entorno en sus estudiantes.…”