Importance for DEA of Zeros in Data, Multipliers, and Solutions

Some prominent literature in the DEA field has displayed the following three problems involving zeros: (1) The structural role of zeros in data has not necessarily been recognized; in fact, without explanation, arbitrary, small positive numbers have been substituted for such zeros. (2) It is not wel...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of productivity analysis 1993-11, Vol.4 (4), p.379-390
Main Authors: THOMPSON, RUSSELL G., DHARMAPALA, P.S., THRALL, ROBERT M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Arid zones
Economic models
Economic value
Efficiency metrics
Irrigation
Land surveying
Modeling
Optimal solutions
Zero
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Some prominent literature in the DEA field has displayed the following three problems involving zeros: (1) The structural role of zeros in data has not necessarily been recognized; in fact, without explanation, arbitrary, small positive numbers have been substituted for such zeros. (2) It is not well recognized that the artificial, non-Archimedean construct is not necessarily needed to exclude zero multipliers and to identify positive slacks. (3) Because of degeneracy, optimal solutions are not necessarily unique; this lack of uniqueness is especially important in interpretation of the multipliers and slacks.
ISSN:0895-562X
1573-0441
DOI:10.1007/bf01073546