Evaluation of the public service efficiency based on DEA in mountainous areas in the southwest of Sichuan province

Since public services are important in the efforts to achieve the overall well-off society, decision-makers need to ensure that the public investments provide efficient services in mountainous areas. This study applied the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to investigate the technical efficiency (TE), pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE) among a sample of 30 counties in the southwest of Sichuan. Results show that 29(97%) of the 30 counties analyzed were found to be technically inefficient, with an average score of 0.286. Twenty four(80%) counties were found to be pure technically inefficient, with an average score of 0.425. Twenty seven(90%) counties were found to be scale inefficient, with an average score of 0.804. Twenty four(80%) counties reached the benchmark of the index “percentage of GDP expenditure on education”, while only 1(3%) and 8 (26%) counties reached the benchmark of the index “percentage of GDP expenditure on medical and health” and “percentage of GDP expenditure on general public services”. It is concluded that the public service efficiency of this region is significantly influenced by the regional economy and topography, thus we strongly recommend the local governments to improve the self-development ability even if they could get financial investment and policy support, and the local governments should institutionalize public service efficiency monitoring in the context of the settlement reconstruction.