Cost Efficiency Benchmarking for Operational Units with Multiple Cost Drivers

We consider the activity-based costing situation, in which for each of several comparable operational units, multiple cost drivers generate a single cost pool. Our study focuses on published data from a set of property tax collection offices, called rates departments, for the London metropolitan area. We define what may be called benchmark or most efficient costs per unit of driver. A principle of maximum performance efficiency is proposed, and an approach to estimating the benchmark unit costs is derived from this principle. A validation approach for this estimation method is developed in terms of what we call normal-like-or-better performance effectiveness. Application to longitudinal data on a single unit is briefly discussed. We also consider some implications for the more routine case when costs are disaggregated to subpools associated with individual cost drivers. Subject Areas: Activity-based Costing, Data Envelopment Analysis, Mathematical Programming, Performance Evaluation, and Statistics.