Methodological and empirical advances in the assessment of the performance of productive efficiency since the introduction of DEA: A bibliometric analysis

The field of productivity and efficiency analysis is growing exponentially, both in terms of new methods and approaches proposed to assess the efficiency of productive decision making units (DMUs), and in terms of innovative and traditional empirical application of existing methods. In this landscape it is interesting to trace the evolution of the field to try to understand recent trends and unexplored areas for further research. This survey provides a bibliometric investigation on the advances of the data envelopment analysis from the seminal and influential work of Abraham Charnes in 1978 to most recent empirical and theoretical contributions. A time-based mapping and distance-based clusters of the state of the art in the field of productivity and efficiency analysis are developed with the support of CitNetExplorer and VOSviewer analytical tools (Van Eck and Waltman 2014). The visualization of professor Charnes relevant extensions is presented with the identification of applications gaps and evaluation of so far proposed methodologies based on a network of co-citations, providing a valuable reference for researchers to understand the overview and potential advances in this field.