Multi-period data envelopment analysis based on Chebyshev inequality bounds

Data envelopment analysis is a cross-sectional approach to evaluate the relative efficiency of a set of homogeneous units in a single time point; nonetheless, organizational units have been performing continuously over a period of time; hence, their performances are considered within this period. Cumulating inputs and outputs over the time periods provide an unnecessary compensating impact, making the efficiency appraisal unrealistic. To avoid this negative impact of data accumulation, a two-stage approach on the basis of Chebyshev inequality bounds is proposed to find interval efficiency of decision making units (henceforth DMUs). The proposed method is applied in a real case encompassing 115 bank branches over 6 periods of time. This application indicated the significant cautious approach of the proposed method in multi-period data envelopment analysis (hereafter DEA).