Measuring Efficiency of South American CompaniesUsing DEA

Latin America has become a region with many innovations in telecom-munications and mobile telephones. Smartphone penetration has 34% market share and, according to recent data, approximately 16 million smartphones entered the market in the first quarter of this year, which is a 53% increase compared to the same period in 2012. The latest moves in the telecommunications industry in Latin America point to consolida-tion and great potential for growth. This is why we decided to measure the efficiency of Latin American telecommunication services. We used data envelopment analysis, which is considered to be a powerful tool for measuring the efficiency of units. We focused on joint stock compa-nies because they publish their income statement, balance sheet and cash flow information yearly. We created a two stage DEA model. The first stage measured the efficiency of asset allocation within the compa-nies. The second stage measured the overall efficiency of the companies with the efficiency of asset allocation as one of its inputs. We measured such efficiencies and their changes for the period of 2008 to 2013. In this way we were able to say how the Latin American companies pre-form compared to other companies in the sector. Our main data source was the Thomson Reuters database.

کلیدواژه ها:

Data Envelopment Analysis ، Efficiency ، South America ، Publicly Joint stock companies ، Telecommunication