On some generalization of the DEA models

Abstract

Inadequate results may arise in some instances of DEA model applications. For example, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model may show ‘a notoriously inefficient unit’ as an efficient one. In addition, too many efficient units may appear in some DEA models. An elegant and subtle approach was proposed to deal with these problems, which is based on incorporating domination cones in DEA models. Yu, Wei and Brockett suggested the generalized DEA (GDEA) model that unifies and extends most of the well-known DEA models based on using domination cones. In this paper, we propose a model that is more general than the GDEA model, on the one hand, as it covers situations that the GDEA model cannot describe. On the other hand, our model enables one to construct step-by-step any model from the family of the GDEA models by incorporating artificial units and rays in the space of inputs and outputs in the Banker, Charnes, Cooper (BCC) model, which makes the process of model construction visible and more understandable. Moreover, we show that any GDEA model can be approximated by some BCC model.