Improving the management of public agencies in relation to better use of inputs is a difficult task. Performance is a complex phenomenon that must be comprehensively described using a system of indicators developed using appropriate modeling methods. The aim of this paper is to benchmark the complex efficiency of a public agency's sub-units by using frontier analysis methods and Estonia's national rescue service brigades as an example.
To benchmark the efficiency estimates for the rescue service brigades, two simplified and two multi-component models are constructed using data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis. According to the results, we conclude that the different model types reflect the efficiency of the rescue service brigades from different perspectives, and so the calculated estimates and rankings are only weakly correlated with each other.
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