Research funding and performance in U.K. University Departments of Economics: A frontier analysis

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to investigate the technical efficiency of U.K. university departments of economics as producers of research. Particular attention is paid to the role of external funding of research as an input into the research process. The data set used is an extended version of the one which informed the 1989 Universities Funding Council peer review, and the results obtained here are compared with those obtained by the Council. We conclude that DEA has a positive contribution to make in the development of meaningful indicators of university performance.