Title: Efficiency assessment of Chinese logistics firms using DEA

Authors: Huaqing Wu; Jie Wu; Liang Liang; Yongjun Li

Addresses: School of Economics, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui, 230009, China. ' School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China. ' School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China. ' School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, China

Abstract: This paper proposes data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate the operational efficiency of three categories, and a total of 36 listed logistics firms in China. DEA-CCR, BCC, NIRS and SUP models, including two groups of financial and non-financial input and output measures, are used to discover the level and sources of efficiency and inefficiency of sample firms. The empirical results show that there are only one third of them with DEA efficiency value of 1, indicating that the overall efficiency of Chinese logistic industry is relatively low. And among three categories of service offerings, efficiency value of transporting firms is less than the average of logistic industry, with the lowest value for port firms, which can be attributed to scale inefficiency, mainly stemming from decreasing returns to scale (DRTS). Finally, the feasibility of DEA method of evaluating efficiency of logistic firms is demonstrated, and the related suggestions for efficiency improvement of Chinese logistic industry are also presented.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis; DEA; logistics firms; efficiency assessment; China; operational efficiency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTL.2012.047485

International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics, 2012 Vol.4 No.3, pp.212 - 234

Received: 12 Nov 2011
Accepted: 14 Nov 2011
Published online: 14 Aug 2014 *

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