Evaluation of The Efficiency of The Agricultural Bank Branches by Using Data Envelopment Analysis and The Determination of a Consolidated Index: The Case Study in Mazandaran Province

Banking is one of the most complex industries in the world and has a major contributor to a country’s wealth. In this thesis, a two-stage approach is employed to measure performance evaluation of 25 agriculture bank branches of Mazandaran province based on: resources production, consumerism allocation, and profitability dimensions in 2014. The resources production approach shows that how each branch can use the possessions and labors(as inputs) to collect deposits(as outputs). The consumerism allocation approach indicates that how each branch is success in lending loans(as outputs) used collected deposits(as inputs) from customers. The profitability approach is used to assess the ability of a branch to convert its expenses(as inputs) into revenues(as outputs). To determine the inputs and outputs parameters, the researcher is used the experience of experts in banks as well as studying applied researches in this field.In the first stage, after finding the relative efficiencies of each branch under above approaches, inefficient branches and corresponding target units has been determined. In the second stage, the three efficiency scores are aggregated into a single scalar value for the purpose of overall ranking. In the general case, this stage offers a defendable ranking process for whatever study is being undertaken and this enables branch managers to clearly identify the strengths and weaknesses in their operations. Based on obtained results, the Sari branch has been ranked in the first place and the Chalous branch has been ranked in the last place.