Market value chain efficiency in Turkey: application of DEA to the pre- and post-2001 financial crisis

Purpose – The motivation for this paper stems from the 2001 financial crisis which emerged in the banking industry and spread over the other industries, creating a domino effect. The purpose of this paper is to examine the market efficiency of Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) listed non-financial firms from 2000 through 2002. Design/methodology/approach – A four-stage data envelope analysis (DEA) is developed to measure the performance of firms before and after the 2001 financial crisis. At each stage, production, profitability, marketability and overall efficiencies are measured. Further, Malmquist Productivity Index is applied to compare total factor productivity over time. Findings – The findings show that firms are more efficient at the profitability stage than at other stages. However, the 2001 financial crisis eroded profitability efficiency. Overall, ISE-listed firms experienced diseconomies of scale so that many firms were not able to transform production into sales and therefore earnings efficiently, particularly during the crisis period. Research limitations/implications – The sample is limited to manufacturing companies. All financial firms are excluded from the sample. Originality/value – This paper extends the three-stage market value efficiency process outlined in Zhu (2000) by adding production stage. It proposes four-stage DEA approach to measure production, profitability, marketability and overall efficiency of ISE-listed firms. To the best of authors’ knowledge, there has been no study using four-stage DEA approach for Turkish firms.