Toda organización necesita, medir su desempeño como requisito previo para mejorar. Este trabajo propone un modelo para evaluar el sector asegurador argentino, analizando la eficiencia y productividad relativa de las compañías de seguros durante el periodo 2002 - 2011, utilizando la técnica de frontera eficiente conocida como Análisis Envolvente de Datos y el Índice de Malmquist. Los resultados indican que en los últimos diez años el mercado no ha mejorado su productividad. Una de las causas se atribuye al deterioro tecnológico sufrido en el periodo. Las empresas necesitaron más recursos para seguir produciendo lo mismo, no han invertido en pos de mejorar sus prácticas administrativas y tecnológicas, o bien sus inversiones no se han traducido en un aumento en el nivel de primas negociadas. Palabras clave: Mercado asegurador, Eficiencia, Productividad, Data Envelopment Analysis, Índice de Malmquist. / All organizations need to measure their performance as a prerequisite for improvement. This thesis proposes a model to evaluate the Argentine insurance sector, analyzing efficiency and relative productivity during the period 2002-2011, using a technique of efficient frontier known as Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist Index. The results indicate that in the last ten years the market has not improved its productivity. One of the causes is attributed to the technological decline suffered in the period. Companies needed more resources to continue producing at the same level, they have not invested in pursuit of improving its administrative and technological practices, or investments have not translated into an increase in the level of negotiated premiums. Key words: Insurance market, Efficiency, Productivity, Data Envelopment Analysis, Malmquist Index.

The concept of efficiency measurement is based on the definition of a frontier that envelopes observed production plans. The effect of pollution on productive efficiency is typically studied by considering pollution as not freely disposable (i.e., there is a cost incurred to dispose of pollution) or by assigning shadow prices to pollution outputs. However, the frontier along with the required technological assumptions (such as convexity) needed for a definition of a frontier may be replaced with the concept of pair-wise dominance. With data from a manufacturing facility, the use of pair-wise dominance allows one to consider a wide spectrum of inputs and outputs. Pair-wise dominance can also be applied to segregate production plans into sets according to their relative environmental performance and productive efficiency. These sets are used to identify reference production plans upon which distance-based measures of performance are defined. This research applies pair-wise dominance to time series data from a printed circuit board manufacturing facility to illustrate the approach. The proposed approach is compared to the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. It was observed that for detailed production data the proposed approach was more informative concerning the measurement of productive efficiency than the standard methods. / Ph. D.

This dissertation explores the use of the efficiency performance measurement paradigm (EM), in terms of its concepts and applications, as an ex-ante mechanism to evaluate enterprise performance and inform enterprise design. The design of an enterprise is driven by decisions that include, but not limit to, which strategies to implement, how to allocate resources, how to shift operating patterns, and how to boost coordination among enterprises, among others. Up to date, EM has been mainly used as a descriptive mechanism, but the fundamental reason for measuring performance in an ex-post fashion, i.e., how well an enterprise does, is also valid in the context of design decisions, i.e., ex-ante evaluation. The contrast between the ex-post and ex-ante use of EM relates to the measurement purpose, i.e., why to measure. Ex-post measurement focuses on evaluating 'what happened' (non-disruptive) while ex-ante measurement emphasizes in informing design decisions exploring changes in current settings (more disruptive). Within this context and to achieve the purpose above, this dissertation is supported by theoretical insights and complemented with three empirical studies. The theoretical insights relate to facts that support, connect to, and challenge (i.e., facilitate or impede) the ex-ante use of EM for enterprise evaluation and informing enterprise design. Those insights are based on the efficiency performance measurement, organizational design and enterprise systems engineering literature. Meanwhile, the three empirical studies situate the application of EM as an ex-ante mechanism to inform evacuation management, bank branch management, and power plants. The theoretical and empirical results indicate that EM is well suited for both evaluating enterprise performance and informing design decisions. The main contribution of this dissertation to enterprise stakeholders is that EM can be not only used to answer how well the enterprise did, but also how well it could do if certain design decisions are taken. / Ph. D.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a relative technical efficiency measurement tool, which uses operations research techniques to automatically calculate the weights assigned to the inputs and outputs of the production units being assessed. The actual input/output data values are then multiplied with the calculated weights to determine the efficiency scores. Recent variants of the DEA model impose upper and lower bounds on the weights to eliminate certain drawbacks associated with unrestricted weights. These variants are called weight restriction DEA models. Most weight restriction DEA models suffer from a drawback that the weight bound values are uncertain because they are determined based on either incomplete information or the subjective opinion of the decision-makers. Since the efficiency scores calculated by the DEA model are sensitive to the values of the bounds, the uncertainty of the bounds gets passed onto the efficiency scores. The uncertainty in the efficiency scores becomes unacceptable when we consider the fact that the DEA results are used for making important decisions like allocating funds and taking action against inefficient units. In order to minimize the effect of the uncertainty in bound values on the decision-making process, we propose to explicitly incorporate the uncertainty in the modeling process using the concepts of fuzzy set theory. Modeling the imprecision involves replacing the bound values by fuzzy numbers because fuzzy numbers can capture the intuitive conception of approximate numbers very well. Amongst the numerous types of weight restriction DEA models developed in the research, two are more commonly used in real-life applications compared to the others. Therefore, in this research, we focus on these two types of models for modeling the uncertainty in bound values. These are the absolute weight restriction DEA models and the Assurance Region (AR) DEA models. After developing the fuzzy models, we provide implementation roadmaps for illustrating the development and solution methodology of those models. We apply the fuzzy weight restriction models to the same data sets as those used by the corresponding crisp weight restriction models in the literature and compare the results using the two-sample paired t-test for means. We also use the fuzzy AR model developed in the research to measure the performance of a newspaper preprint insertion line. / Master of Science

Yes / This article examines the potential benefits of solving a stochastic DEA model over solving a deterministic DEA model. It demonstrates that wrong decisions could be made whenever a possible stochastic DEA problem is solved when the stochastic information is either unobserved or limited to a measure of central tendency. We propose two linear models: a semi-stochastic model where the inputs of the DMU of interest are treated as random while the inputs of the other DMUs are frozen at their expected values, and a stochastic model where the inputs of all of the DMUs are treated as random. These two models can be used with any empirical distribution in a Monte Carlo sampling approach. We also define the value of the stochastic efficiency (or semi-stochastic efficiency) and the expected value of the efficiency.

Yes / Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a technique for identifying the best practices of a given set of decision-making units (DMUs) whose performance is categorized by multiple performance metrics that are classified as inputs and outputs. Although DEA is regarded as non-parametric, the sample size can be an issue of great importance in determining the efficiency scores for the evaluated units, empirically, when the use of too many inputs and outputs may result in a significant number of DMUs being rated as efficient. In the DEA literature, empirical rules have been established to avoid too many DMUs being rated as efficient. These empirical thresholds relate the number of variables with the number of observations. When the number of DMUs is below the empirical threshold levels, the discriminatory power among the DMUs may weaken, which leads to the data set not being suitable to apply traditional DEA models. In the literature, the lack of discrimination is often referred to as the “curse of dimensionality”. To overcome this drawback, we provide a simple approach to increase the discriminatory power between efficient and inefficient DMUs using the well-known pure DEA model, which considers either inputs only or outputs only. Three real cases, namely printed circuit boards, Greek banks, and quality of life in Fortune’s best cities, have been discussed to illustrate the proposed approach. / panish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad), the State Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigación) and the European Regional Development Fund (Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional) under grant MTM2016-79765-P (AEI/FEDER, UE).

Yes / The traditional Lerner index is limited in its capacity to estimate the level of competition in the economic sector from the perspective that it mainly focuses on the overall level of market power for each individual decision-making unit. Recently, Fukuyama and Tan (J Oper Res Soc, 73:445–453, 2022) estimated the Lerner index by applying the nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate the marginal cost, which is an important component in the estimation of the Lerner index. Our study further extends the study of Fukuyama and Tan (J Oper Res Soc, 73:445–453, 2022) by estimating the marginal cost under the DEA in a multi-product setting. Our proposed methodology benefits from the ability to find positive marginal costs for all the products and specifies all decision-making units are profit maximizers. In order to achieve this, the marginal cost is estimated by referring to the nearest point on the best practice cost-efficient frontier for the profit-maximizing firms. We then apply our innovative method to the Chinese real estate industry. The result shows that the Chinese real estate industry has higher market power in the residential commodity housing market than that in the commodity housing market. This is also the case for different geographical areas in China. Overall, for both of these two different markets, the level of market power experiences a level of volatility.

Le tourisme a été généralement défini comme le voyage d'une personne à une destination pour y faire une escale avant de revenir à son milieu d'origine. La perception d'une destination est donc au centre de l’étude lors de l'examen de laproposition du tourisme expliqué dans le cadre de cette thèse. Mais la perception de la destination a aussi des caractéristiques très difficiles. Afin de vérifier cela, nous devons considérer ce que le marketing des professionnels et des chercheurs ont apporté. Metelka (1990, p.46) et Vukonic (1997) ont défini une destination comme “un lieu géographique où les gens peuvent séjourner », tandis que Gunn (1994) explique une destination comme une zone géographique "suffisamment développé pour répondre aux objectifs de voyageurs" (Gunn, 1994, p.27). De ce point de vue, les destinations touristiques peuvent être associées soit à un pays ou soit à un (ou plusieurs) région, une ville ou des sites touristiques ; la destination est une notion géographique ou spatiale qui est d'abord définie par ses propres visiteurs. Dans la condition où le lieu n’est pas familier au touriste, l'endroit ne peut pas être considéré comme destination. Cependant, de nombreuses questions sont abordées dans la présente thèse pour comprendre comment une place peut devenir ensuite une destination, ainsi que les implications de cette transformation. / Firstly, tourism has been defined as a journey of an individual to a destination for a stopover, then return to his/her origin environment. The perception of a destination is therefore at a centre, considering the tourism proposition explained here. Above and beyond this, the perception of a destination also has significantly difficult characteristics. To verify this, we have to consider what marketing professionals and researchers bring to it. Metelka (1990, p.46) describes a destination as "the geographic location to which someone travels." Vukonic (1997) also relates the term to that factor whereas Gunn (1994) explains a destination is recognised by the travel market as a geographical area "sufficiently developed to meet the objectives of travellers" (Gunn, 1994, p.27). From this standpoint, tourist destinations may have the scope of being a country or (one or more) region, city or an exact site. The destination is a geographical or spatial notion that is first definedby its visitors. In the condition that no stranger visits a place, that place cannot be deliberated as a destination. This image gives the impression of asserting the obvious. However, many issues are discussed in this paper for a place tosubsequently become a destination, as well as the implications of this transformation.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-15T00:31:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Necesio Jose Faria Tavares1.pdf: 2033252 bytes, checksum: 8b63c2b863899e404c67387e2131f57d (MD5) Necesio Jose Faria Tavares2.pdf: 2811029 bytes, checksum: d3712cd52d1b9c01aec2a33386aaf793 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-20 / DEA, Data Envelopment Analysis, is a non parametric modeling technique which came about in 1976 when three prominent researchers, Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes were in search of a procedure to evaluate productivity/efficiency without recourse to price information. Soon after, new and more complex models were developed with wide acceptance among researchers mainly in the Management Sciences field. Nowadays, DEA finds its use in areas like hospitals, banks, industries, universities and capital markets. This research aims at using DEA as a tool to evaluate the top Brazilian companies listed in the local stock exchange based in a model which simultaneously combine several inputs to generate income and net profits. A second step evaluates how shareholders value the income and profit generated by the firms. A third step evaluates how efficiently each firm succeeds in directly transforming its endowments in shareholder´s value. The proposed model goes further in that it uses outputs produced by a first stage evaluation, like income and net profit, as inputs to the second phase evaluation. Furthermore, this research combines DEA with the Malmquist Productivity Index providing information on how the largest companies went along in between 2001-2006, as far as productivity and efficiency is concerned. / DEA, Data Envelopment Analysis, é uma técnica não paramétrica que surgiu em 1976 quando os pesquisadores Charnes, Cooper e Rhodes procuravam uma metodologia para calcular eficiência e produtividade em situações onde as informações sobre preços de insumos e de produtos não eram disponíveis. Ao longo dos anos seus métodos se sofisticaram, passando de um simples modelo que exigia a restrição de que todas as empresas operavam em uma situação de retornos constantes de escala a modelos mais complexos que levantaram tal restrição. Atualmente, DEA é utilizada em áreas tão diversas como finanças empresariais, mercado de capitais, avaliação de universidades, bases aéreas, bibliotecas, etc. O modelo utilizado nesta tese para avaliação de desempenho empresarial se baseia na modelagem matemática de DEA que permite a utilização de vários inputs e outputs simultaneamente para a determinação da eficiência/produtividade de cada firma. A avaliação de desempenho das empresas é realizada sob 3 óticas distintas: (i) avalia a eficiência da empresa em gerar receita e lucro, (ii) avalia como o mercado valoriza a receita e o lucro produzidos pela empresa, e (iii) analisa também como a empresa consegue transformar seus fatores de produção diretamente em valor ao acionista. DEA permite distinguir os conceitos de eficiência e produtividade, fornecendo relevantes informações para tomada de decisões estratégicas. Como parte do processo de análise, obtém-se uma fronteira das melhores práticas entre as empresas analisadas permitindo a identificação da situação de retornos de escala de cada uma das empresas estudadas. Ademais, torna possível a associação com os conceitos do Índice de Malmquist, possibilitando uma avaliação da trajetória de cada empresa ao longo de um período estudado e identificando como ela evoluiu em termos de eficiência e/ou produtividade e se ela conseguiu acompanhar as inovações tecnológicas de seu grupo.

La question centrale que cherche à aborder cette thèse tourne autour d’une proposition de délimitation du concept de la gouvernance dans les organisations non gouvernementales. La question de la gouvernance a été largement étudiée par les économistes du « public choice » sans pour autant proposer une application aux ONG, chose qui devient nécessaire vu le développement sociétal quantitatif et qualitatif de ces organisations et leurs impacts croissants sur la société. Face aux défaillances des Etats, et aux besoins d’interventions spécifiques dans quelques domaines, des actions collectives organisées ont émergé et se sont développées. L’approche adoptée cherche à présenter en premier lieu l’émergence des normes de coopération et d’entraide pour ensuite définir les structures de propriétés et de prise de décisions au sein des ONG. Cette étude présente ensuite les caractéristiques des différentes composantes du cadre opérationnel des interventions des ONG : relations avec les donateurs, transparence de l’information, structures de coûts… Le choix du Liban émane du caractère unique d’un petit pays qui a connu une prolifération large d’ONG depuis plus qu’une cinquantaine d’années. Après avoir présenté les résultats de l’enquête menée auprès d’un échantillon représentatif des organisations au Liban, on propose un modèle d’évaluation de l’efficacité de l’action de ces organisations basé sur les travaux de Cooper, Charnes et Rhodes sur le modèle de Data Envelopment Analysis DEA. / The central question that this thesis seeks to address revolves around a proposal for delimitation of the concept of governance in non-governmental organizations. The issue of governance has been widely studied by economists of the public choice without nonetheless proposing an application to NGOs, something that has become necessary due to the quantitative and qualitative development of these organizations and their growing impact on society. Given the shortcomings of States, and specific needs that have begun to arise requiring interventions in some areas in societies, organized collective action emerged and developed. The approach used in this proposal seeks to present first the emergence of norms of cooperation and mutual assistance, and then define the properties and structures of decision-making processes within NGOs. This study then presents the characteristics of the different components of the operational framework of NGO interventions: donor relations, information and transparency, cost structures ... The choice of Lebanon comes from the uniqueness of a small country that has seen a large proliferation of NGOs from more than fifty years. presented the results of the survey of 90 organizations in Lebanon, an evaluation of the effectiveness of the action of the organization is presented based on the work of Cooper, Charnes and Rhodes on the model of Data envelopment analysis DEA.