The Local Government’s Performance Evaluation Based On Factor Analysis And DEA

With the domestic reform deepening day by day, the implementation of scientific and reasonable evaluation methods for local government is of great significance for the transformation of government functions and administrative reforms. In recent years, it has become a trend to analyze the government performance by quantitative analysis methods, which seem to be not so scientific. Based on this situation, this paper analyzes the performances of ten municipal governments in Shaanxi province by the combination of factor analysis and DEA method in order to explore the application of the method among local governments. Here is the main work completed in the study. Some fundamental definitions are made clear based on the summaries of domestic and international evaluation methods for local government. On account of the domestic and foreign research results, the government experiences, the related principles and the actual situations in Shaanxi province, the benefit index system is established from four aspects including economical development, public utilities, environment protection and residential living conditions. Based on the factor analysis method, five common factors are taken as examples and their evaluation scores are used for municipal performance analysis. The cost benefit index system should be established after adding input index to the five common factors. Then analyses should be conducted based on the DEA method. Finally, improvement suggestions are put forward based on the factor analysis and DEA analysis methods.