An inverse data envelopment analysis model for solving time substitution problems

Abstract

This paper proposes new inverse data envelopment analysis (DEA) models considering input and output efficiency measures for the time substitution problem. We compare our DEA model with existing models in the literature. We show that existing models in the literature overestimate the required resources, and on the other hand, these are a special case of our models. We show that our models are unit invariant. We also describe another appealing characteristic of our model, that is, efficiency invariant, as a consequence of inverse structure. An illustrative example is provided to explain the proposed model and provide a comparison of our models and existing models in the literature. We also used our models in a real-world application, the selected economic sectors in Iran. The results show some potential improvements during the period of study.