In the present study, we have carried out an efficiency analysis of German universities, whose strategies for the future were awarded as part of the Excellence Initiative. For the analysis, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and its advancement, the Super-efficient DEA (SDEA), were employed. The latter allows the inclusion of so-called super-efficient universities as well as a better differentiation between universities when small data sets are used. The results of the DEA show that almost all universities operate either efficiently or very close to the efficiency frontier. The results of the SDEA suggest that there are some super-efficient universities. Overall, the results point to a homogenous picture of the universities which were rewarded in the Excellence Initiative.

Keywords
Productivity, Efficiency, Universities, Excellence Initiative