A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FEDERAL UNIVERSITY EFFICIENCY ACROSS BRAZILIAN REGIONS (2010-2016)

Abstract

Efficiency can be defined as the ratio of a firm's observed output to the maximum output which could be achieved given its input levels and available technology. It became a critical topic when considering the importance of Public Institutions to the Brazilian Higher Education system and its regional idiosyncrasies. Thus, this study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the relative efficiency of all 56 Brazilian Federal Public Universities for the period of 2010 to 2016 considering some aspects of its regional distribution. The data come primarily from INEP Higher Education Census, CAPES and INPI. The results showed that 26 (47%) of the universities were efficient, with a general mean efficiency of 87%. Although the values by region diverge, they ended up converging to efficiencies between 75% (North) and 90% (Southeast). Through time, the Malmquist index suggests improvements higher than 30% but with different characteristics to the financial and the human resources and among regions. Results also suggest that R$ 2.96 billion by year were wasted due to inefficiency or that an additional 10% of outputs could be obtained.