A DEA approach to derive individual lower and upper bounds for the technical and allocative components of the overall profit efficiency

In this paper, we propose a slack‐based data envelopment analysis approach to be used in economic efficiency analyses when the objective is profit maximization. The focus is on the measurement of the technical component of the overall efficiency with the purpose of guaranteeing the achievement of the Pareto efficiency. As a result, we will be able to estimate correctly the allocative component in the sense that this latter only reflects the improvements that can be accomplished by reallocations along the Pareto‐efficient frontier. Some new measures of technical and allocative efficiency in terms of both profit ratios and differences of profits are defined. We do not make any assumption on the way the technical efficiency is to be measured, that is, we do not use, for example, either a hyperbolic measure or a directional distance function, which allows us to extend this approach and derive individual lower and upper bounds for these efficiency components. To do it, we use novel models of minimum distance to the frontier. This broadens the range of possibilities for the explanation of the overall efficiency in terms of technical and allocative inefficiencies.