An efficiency analysis on social prosperity: OPEC case under network DEA slack-based measure approach

Highlights: • Human resources, oil production and social prosperity divisions are considered in this study. • A Network DEA and Slack Based Measure approach are proposed. • Kuwait and UAE have the best performance when looking to overall efficiency scores. • OPEC member countries are facing the problems in improving social prosperity. The purpose of this study is to measure social prosperity efficiency levels of the OPEC member countries with the Network Data Envelopment Analysis Slack Based Measure (NDEA-SBM) approach. Many researchers who are willing to employ an energy efficiency analysis generally carry out their studies on efficiency levels of energy consumption, energy production, or environmental effects. Unlike those, this study aims to answer the questions of whether the OPEC members used their oil wealth effectively to increase the social prosperity in their countries. In this context, three efficiency analyses were designed under three divisions: human resources, oil revenue, and social prosperity. The main contribution of this study is that the NDEA-SBM method was applied by using the social prosperity concept for the first time in such an efficiency analysis for the OPEC countries. In these aspects, this research differs from the previous researches. The most interesting finding is that the OPEC member countries were found 60% efficient in social prosperity dimension under the NDEA-SBM model. In other words, these oil-rich countries were inefficient in using 40% of their wealth from oil to improve their citizen's social prosperity level in 2019.