Measuring the technology gap and logistics performance of individual countries by using a meta-DEA–AR model

This study presents an alternative approach to evaluate the efficiency of the logistics performance index (LPI) of individual countries. This study considers the differences among technology groups by classifying and comparing the countries as high-income Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), high-income non-OECD, upper-middle-income, lower-middle-income, and low-income countries. The meta-frontier data envelopment analysis with assurance regions (Meta-DEA--AR) model is proposed to evaluate LPI scores and differences accurately among groups. For conformity with the ranking of original World Bank LPI, the assurance region of each logistics indicator is obtained by a regression model. The results show that the LPI rankings obtained by the proposed model are very comparable to those of World Bank LPI. Without distorting the rankings, the results offer several managerial suggestions for those countries with inefficiency in their LPIs.