A three-stage DEA-based efficiency evaluation of social security expenditure in China

PLoS One. 2020 Feb 11;15(2):e0226046. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226046. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

There is an increasingly growth of China's social security expenditure(SSE) during the past decade. Regarding to the great responsibility and impact on citizens' welfare and economic development, the efficiency of social security expenditure has inevitably become the focus of growing attention. Based on Chinese provincial panel data over the period 2007-2016, a three-stage DEA model was conducted and found that the efficiency level of 29 provinces/municipalities did not reach the efficiency frontier. Environmental factors and statistical noises have a significant impact on the efficiency of SSE, if environmental factors and statistical noises are not considered, the efficiency of SSE in China is likely to be underestimated. The regional differences in the efficiency of SSE were significant and ranked by descending order as follows: central region, eastern region and western region.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Budgets
  • China
  • Cities
  • Economic Development
  • Efficiency, Organizational*
  • Environment
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical*
  • Social Marketing
  • Social Security / economics*
  • Social Welfare
  • Urbanization

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund (13CGL084), Major Project of Hunan Social Science Fund(17ZDB011) and Hunan Education Department Youth Fund(17B133) to YH. This work was also supported by the Hunan Nature Science Youth Fund (2019JJ50277) to WZ. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.