SEARCHING FOR THE LOST EFFICIENCY: A REVIEW ABOUT BRAZILIAN UNIVERSITY PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Abstract

The recent context of fiscal stringency and contingency in Brazilian economy has highlighted the theme of efficiency in public services, including those provided by Federal Universities. Thus, after a brief review of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework, the literature about the application of DEA to Brazilian universities is analyzed following the guidances of Cook, Tone and Zhu (2014). It is the first work that critically analyses the literature about the application of DEA to Brazilian universities following those guidances. The results emphasize that the use of Tribunl de Contas da União (Federal Court of Audit - TCU) ‘index values’ results in a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) analysis of performance and not necessarily in efficiency measures. In order to calculate efficiency, the TCU ‘raw values’ variables are useful but not sufficient. Therefore, caution is required when using all these results in any policy context.