Research by Professor Qunwei Wang that proposes an alternative metafrontier framework for measuring the heterogeneity of technology was featured in Naval Research Logistics (NRL) on November 2018. NRL is dedicated to publishing high-quality papers in operations research/management and general quantitative modeling. Founded in 1954, NRL has a distinguished history of publication of both seminal methodological contributions and innovative applications. “The newly constructed technology gap measurement (TGM) can avoid unreasonable technology gap ratio values in nonradial DEA models and substitute for MTR in radial DEA models,” the authors noted. Abstract is copied below.
      The metafrontier framework proposed by O'Donnell et al. enables the evaluation of relative efficiencies for decision-making units (DMUs) operating under heterogeneous technologies. The metatechnology ratio (MTR) constructed under the metafrontier framework helps estimate the gap between group frontiers and the metafrontier, with its score between 0 and 1. However, an unreasonable MTR value (i.e., greater than 1) may appear when the traditional metafrontier framework is applied in the nonradial data envelopment analysis (DEA) models. This article proposes an alternative metafrontier framework for addressing this issue. The newly constructed technology gap measurement (TGM) can avoid unreasonable technology gap ratio values in nonradial DEA models and substitute for MTR in radial DEA models. To demonstrate how this alternative metafrontier approach works, this article applies it to the efficiency evaluation of regional transportation sectors in China.

 
      Figure 1. Technology gap between the metafrontier and group frontiers in the non-radial DDF model

      Read the paper “An alternative metafrontier framework for measuring the heterogeneity of technology,” published in Naval Research Logistics.