What does this research mean for the field?

The literature on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in business and economics is primarily structured around three main themes—CoreDEA, StatDEA, and DecisionDEA—with traditional methods continuing to develop alongside emerging hybrid and SBM models driven by sustainability research. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.SYNTHESIS. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To comprehensively map the methodological trends, thematic classifications, and emerging research frontiers of Data Envelopment Analysis within business and economics.

August 28, 2026Journal of Economic SurveysOpen Access

Data Envelopment Analysis in Business and Economics: Methods, Trends, and Research Frontiers

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Authors

SBSabri BoubakerUniversidad de Valladolid TNThanh NgoNational Economics University

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Implication

Scoping review reveals structural themes across 12,686 business and economics publications, highlighting growing frontiers in sustainability and hybrid data envelopment analysis models.

Key Points

To comprehensively map the methodological trends, thematic classifications, and emerging research frontiers of Data Envelopment Analysis within business and economics.
Conducted a scoping review across 12,686 Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) studies published in business and economics domains.
Applied machine-learning-driven Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to categorize and classify the vast literature corpus into distinct themes and categories.
Classified the literature into three primary themes: CoreDEA (n=11,167 studies), StatDEA (n=1,266 studies), and DecisionDEA (n=253 studies).
Subdivided the literature into 15 specific categories, including Dynamic DEA, Undesirable DEA, Bootstrap DEA, and ANP/AHP DEA.
Identified traditional CoreDEA as consistently active, while highlighting sustainability-oriented research—particularly SBM DEA and hybrid frameworks integrating bootstrap, meta-frontier, and network models—as key research frontiers.

Cite This Study

Boubaker et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9145c5d15324a1df3a8ff7 https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.70154

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Implication

Scoping review reveals structural themes across 12,686 business and economics publications, highlighting growing frontiers in sustainability and hybrid data envelopment analysis models.

Data Envelopment Analysis in Business and Economics: Methods, Trends, and Research Frontiers

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Data Envelopment Analysis in Business and Economics: Methods, Trends, and Research Frontiers

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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