MEASURING THE MACROECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF THE TAIWANESE ECONOMY

In this paper I construct a scalar-valued summary measure of the macroeconomic performance of an economy. The measure combines any number of conventional but noncommensurate performance indicators. The basic idea behind the procedure is to use mathematical programming techniques of efficiency measurement to construct a ''best practice'' macroeconomic performance frontier, and then to measure performance in terms of an indicator-based efficiency score. The procedure is applied to a set of ten Asian economies over the past two decades, with special attention paid to Taiwan.