Estimating the Total Factor Productivity Growth and Studying the Efficiency and Technology Changes in Iranian Public Higher Education Public by Data Envelopment Analysis Model

Higher education is a special kind of investment in human resources that accelerates economic, social and cultural development of society by improving knowledge, skills and new theories. Hence, the evaluation of efficiency and productivity growth in trustee units of this sector is one of the important issues which nowadays have been specifically concentrated in economic and social studies. Based on the Fourth Development Plan of the I.R of Iran, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) should reach 2/5 % per Year. Thus, according to the plan, all organizations, institutions and enterprises should recognize the factors affecting their total factor productivity growth. This paper, therefore, using a combined model of DEA and tornqvist productivity index investigates Total Factor Productivity Growth (TFPG) in Public Higher Education sector of the country. It additionally studies the impacts of efficiency and technological changes on this growth. The results show that Total Factor Productivity changes in Public Higher Education sector has been highly resulted by technological changes, while efficiency changes have a little impact in the decreasing changes of TFP.