ICT expenditures and education outputs/outcomes in selected developed countries: An assessment of relative efficiency

The aim of the paper is to review some previous researches examining ICT efficiency and the impact of ICT on educational output/outcome as well as different conceptual and methodological issues related to performance measurement.

This paper adopts a non‐parametric methodology, i.e. data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique, and applies it to selected EU‐27 and OECD countries.

The empirical results of the varying levels of (output‐oriented) efficiency (under the VRSTE framework) show that Finland, Norway, Belgium and Korea are the most efficient countries in terms of their ICT sectors. In addition, the analysis also finds evidence that most of the countries under consideration hold great potential for increased efficiency in ICT and for improving their educational outputs and outcomes.

This is the first paper that investigates such a wide range of countries with DEA technique when analyzing efficiency of ICT sector from an educational perspective.