DEA ASSURANCE REGION SBDC EFFICIENCY AND UNIQUE PROJECTIONS/

The University of Houston (UH) Small Business Development Centers (SBD Cs) were analyzed by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Assurance Reg ion (AR) methods. The DEA/AR analyses were made for 11 DMUs in 1990 an d 1991 and for 13 DMUs in 1992. The DEA ratio (CCR) method was applied to Model I in all three years; unique optimal solutions to the DEA-in efficient DMUs were verified. Also, ARs were applied to eliminate some DEA-efficient DMUs requiring unreasonable multipliers to maximize eff iciency. In addition, measures of returns-to-scale (RTS) intervals fro m application of the DEA convex (BCC) method in 1992 showed several ad ditional DEA-efficient DMUs needed some additional funds to work towar d the most productive scale size.