Measuring the relative efficiency in insurance industry plays essential role for productivity improvement in insurance industry. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to measure the relative efficiency of some insurance firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange using data envelopment analysis (DEA) over the period 2011-2013. The proposed study of this paper uses four inputs namely; total assets, price to earnings ratio, beta and sigma and four outputs namely; net earnings, one-year, two-year and three-year returns. The study uses two methods of input and output oriented DEA to measures the relative efficiencies of 9 banks and the results indicate that most insurance firms perform well in terms of efficiency.

Efficiency plays essential role for improving the performance of banking industry. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to study the effect of efficiency on abnormal return. The proposed study collects the necessary information from official statements as well as historical data over the period 2009-2013 reported on Tehran Stock Exchange to examine the relationship between efficiency and abnormal return. Using regression analysis, the study has determined a meaningful, positive but weak relationship between abnormal return and efficiency. However, the study does not find any meaningful relationship between bank size and abnormal return.

During the past few years, there have been tremendous efforts on development of Iranian banking industry in an attempt to fight against monopoly of banking system. Bank Pasargad is one of the biggest Iranian banks established for offering retail, commercial as well as investment banking services. The firm was established in 2005 as part of the government & apos; s privatization of the banking system. This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine the most efficient locations for development of this bank. The study uses three main criteria, customer services (C1), Equipment (C2) and Profitability (C3) to compare different alternatives for establishing new branches in city of Tehran, Iran. Using fuzzy data envelopment analysis the study has determined that center of the city could receive the most important attraction followed by north region, west region as well as south west.

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a well-known method used to measure the efficiency of decision making units. In this paper, we study the impact of the financial crisis while integrating DEA efficiency measures with Support Vector Machines (SVM). Moreover, to account for the heterogeneity effect in the efficiency measures, the gap statistical method of Tibshirani, et al., (2001) [Tibshirani, R., Walther, G., & Hastie, T. (2001). Estimating the number of clusters in a data set via the gap statistic. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology), 63(2), 411-423.] is applied in order to achieve the optimal number of cluster. This study uses December quarterly panel data consisting of Farm Credit Agricultural Banks data from 2005 to 2016. We find strong evidence that the efficiency measures were stationary prior to the financial crisis (2005-2006), during the financial crisis (2007-2009) and post financial crisis (2010-2016). The results further show that the integrated DEA-SVM provide a lower performance during 2007-2009. Furthermore, the results show that the Agricultural banking sector was both efficient and stable over the period being analysed.

During the past three decades, data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been successfully used for measuring the relative efficiency of financial or non-financial firms. This paper presents an empirical investigation to measure the relative efficiency of five Canadian banks versus 6 US big banks using DEA method. The study considers the number of employees and total assets as input and net revenue is used as the output of the DEA model. The data are collected from the official statements of the banks for the fiscal year of 2017. The results indicate that 6 US banks maintained an average efficiency of 0.87 but the average efficiency of Canadian banks was 0.72. While two US banks maintained an efficiency of one, the other US banks demonstrate relatively well in terms of the performance. In Canada, while one bank performed relatively well, the performance of the other Canadian banks were not as good as the US banks.

Measuring the relative efficiency of similar units has been a popular research especially when the units were mostly non-financial. Even, similar financial units may not be necessarily evaluated based on traditional financial figures such as return of equities, return of assets, etc. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to measure the relative efficiency of 30 branches of an Iranian bank named Bank Mellat. The study considers four inputs including operating expenses, interest paid, capital expenditures and fixed assets. In addition, we use customers’ bank deposit, commissions and loans paid as output parameters. Using three different data envelopment analyses, the study measures the relative efficiencies of all units. The preliminary results indicate that most banks were working under desirable level of efficiency.

Today, human resources are considered as the most important assets of any organization. Generally, human being has specific ethical features on personality characteristics forming the attitude, speech and behavior. It is possible that some factors create different attitudes, speech and behavior among people who are in one particular position. These human characteristics influence the efficiency and effectiveness of organization. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between work ethics and human resources productivity in banking network of city of Zahedan, Iran. The study chooses a sample of 236 employees who worked for different banks in city of Zahedan, Iran in 2013. To analyze the data, Pearson correlation test, Friedman ranking and independent t-test were used. The results show that there was a significant association between work ethics components and productivity (efficiency and effectiveness) of human resources.

The aim of this paper is to determine the training courses’ efficiency in Tehran municipality based on Kirkpatrick’s model. The population of the research includes all training courses performed in Tehran municipality in 2008. Using a simple random sampling method, one training period was chosen, which includes 206 participants, 103 financial managers and rest their direct supervisors. For gathering relevant data in first level (reaction), third level (skill), fourth level (objective) and fifth level (rate of investment return), closed-ended questionnaire based on the Likert scale was used. For the second level (learning), we employed scores obtaining from masters in charge of training course (post-test). Our results show that in terms of the mayors’ point of view, training courses in all levels except the second level had significant impact while financial managers saw these courses insignificant in all levels. Furthermore, it is found that both the mayors and financial managers were pessimistic about the second level. Results of present research can have significant implications for educational policymakers in order to improve the training courses.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a method for measuring the efficiency of peer decision making units (DMUs). Traditional DEA models deal with measurements of relative efficiency of DMUs regarding multiple-inputs vs. multiple-outputs. One of the drawbacks of these models is the neglect of intermediate products or linking activities. Recently, DEA has been extended to examine the efficiency of network structures, where there are lots of sub-processes that are linked with intermediate parameters. These intermediate parameters can be considered as the outputs of the first stage and simultaneously as the inputs for the second stage. In contrast to the traditional DEA analysis, network DEA analysis aims to measure different sub-processes’ efficiencies in addition to the total efficiency. Lots of network DEA technique has been used recently, but none of them uses Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in network DEA for assessing a network’s efficiency. In this paper, AHP methodology is used for considering the importance of each sub-process and network DEA is used for measuring total and partial efficiencies based on the importance of each department measured from AHP methodology. In this regard, the case of Iranian Handmade Carpet Industry (IHCI) is used.

The use of solar energy has been adduced as an alternative way for generating electricity. This electricity is generated by solar panel but as temperature increases efficiency of panel decreases too. The main objective of this research paper is to minimize the use of the amount of water, electrical energy and required time needed for cooling of a solar panel. This paper discusses a new approach by acquiring water as a coolant for accomplishing Photovoltaic panels at their moderate temperature and limits it from overheating. It is the cheapest method to enhance the efficiency of the Photovoltaic panel in developing countries like India. This paper also analyses the material used in increasing the efficiency of PV panel.