Abstract
"Efficiency" is the key concept of administrative management, but in the context of the research of educational policy, administration and finance in Japan, this concept has been given no clear definition and empirical operability. The aim of this paper is to examine it from the point of the view of the historical advances of both the concept itself and the methodology of its measurement in America. We pose three questions about it and answer those questions by tracing its history in America. 1) In the 20th century's social science, how have the concept and the methodology of its measurement advanced? 2) When and how were the advances accepted in the research field of educational policy, administration and finance in America? 3) How can we evaluate the state of art of empirical studies of efficiency in America? Our main findings are summarized as follows. First, the theoretical and operable concept of efficiency was given in the 1950's, in M. Farrell's thesis "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency". The methodology of measuring the Farrell's efficiency had been developed in the field of operations research and econometrics in the 1970's. Second, those advances were accepted in the field of educational policy, administration and finance, and they encouraged the growth of empirical applications to educational organizations in the 1980's. This movement reflected the needs of the era of accountability. Third, we can find the substantial contribution of those empirical studies on the grounds that these enable us to evaluate the efficiency of individual educational organizations in a rigorous quantitative manner, clarify the administrative responsibilities of the educational organizations in the context of decentralization, and provide practical tools for educational finance, especially for the fiscal equalization and adequate funding. On the other hand, there is room for further considerations in light of the characteristics of the activity and organization of education. We point out three crucial problems: 1) that the technical assumption of non-negativity and proportionality of scale of output is not suitable for some educational activities; 2) that the behavioral assumption of cost minimization as to input oriented efficiency is not realistic for educational organizations; and 3) that the present analyses of the determinants of inefficiency are not sufficient.
