MEASURING THE EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC FORESTRY ORGANIZATIONS

The decreasing budgets of public forestry organizations have given ris e to the present need to evaluate their efficiency and to find means t o improve it. In this paper the efficiency of 19 state-funded, regiona l Forestry Boards is investigated using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA ). In addition, the prime determinants of efficiency are examined usin g Tobit models. The results indicate a substantial variation in effici ency across Forestry Boards with a potential for input saving in the r ange of 20%, It seems that, of the controllable factors, management st yle and support are associated with efficiency, It appears also that a pplying DEA with Tobit models provides a useful two-stage approach to assess and explain efficiency differences among public forestry organi zations.