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Using DEA and VEA to Evaluate Quality of Life in the Mid-Atlantic States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Elizabeth Marshall  and
James Shortle
Elizabeth Marshall
Affiliation:
World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C.
James Shortle
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania
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Abstract

In this study we use data envelopment analysis (DEA) and an extension of DEA called value efficiency analysis (VEA) to explore the “production” of quality of life within counties in the mid-Atlantic region and the extent to which production frontiers and efficiency differ between rural and urban counties. These methods allow us to identify counties that are inefficient in their quality of life production, and to rank (using DEA) those counties according to their distance from a performance standard established by other observed counties, or (using VEA) by a single unit designated as “most preferred.”

Keywords

data envelopment analysisvalue efficiency analysisquality of life
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , October 2005 , pp. 185 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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