The paper investigates excesses and deficits in Chinese industrial productivity for the years 1953–1990, by combining data envelopment analysis (DEA) with other management science approaches. Improvement factors are examined with the incorporation of a priori information through Delphi, AHP and assurance region (AR) techniques. Various multiple input and multiple output sets are selected to study overall performance, industrial development, and product-related efficiency of Chinese industry. The application also identifies factors that affect the productivity of China's industry in a positive or negative way, i.e., simultaneously identifies both excesses and deficits. Furthermore, the impact of economic reforms and five-year plans is discussed. The current study demonstrates that DEA can be combined with other methods to yield more valid results, insights and recommendations such as: (1) Chinese industrial productivity increased as a result of the five-year plans; (2) the economic reforms changed the behaviour of the enterprises; (3) efficient and effective targets within the industrial development plans can be set, and corrections and revisions can be made; and (4) enterprises should be given more decision-making autonomy in production as well as investment.
