Evaluating Technical Efficiency of Swiss Consulates

We compare the relative performances of a sample of 28 Swiss consular posts in Europe, North America and Asia using an input-oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. The aim is to compute for each post the minimum amount of input – Swiss employees and locally-hired staff and to help the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to control the efficiency of worldwide staff deployment. The second aim of the study is to compare the results of the DEA analysis with those of the DFA’s audit unit, which employs a different methodology.