OVERALL EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE IN VISEGRAD COUNTRIES AND REGIONS IN COMPARISON WITH AUSTRIA AND GERMANY BY MULTIDIMENSIONAL DEA APPROACH

The paper deals with an application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method to multi-criteria performance evaluation of countries and NUTS 2 regions in the Visegrad Four countries (V4) in comparison with selected advanced European Union's (EU) countries, resp. their NUTS 2 regions - Austria and Germany. The aim of the paper is to analyse a degree of efficiency achieved in individual countries and regions which is perceived as a reflection of the level of competitive potential in reference period 2000-2010. The theoretical part of the paper is shortly devoted to the fundamental bases of competitiveness in the context of performance theory and efficiency analysis, and to the methodology of DEA approach. The empirical part is aimed at measuring the degree of productivity and level of efficiency changes of evaluated countries and regions by basic and advanced DEA models. The final part of the paper offers a comprehensive comparison of results obtained by DEA models.