Extended DEA model under type-2 fuzzy environment: An application of rural poverty reduction in Hainan province

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to combine the uncertain methods of type-2 fuzzy sets and data envelopment analysis (DEA) evaluation model together. A new type-2 fuzzy DEA efficiency assessment method is established. Then the proposed procedure is applied to the poverty alleviation problem. Design/methodology/approach The research method is the DEA model, which is an effective method for efficiency assessment of social-economic systems. Considering the existence of the same efficiency values that cannot be ranked in the proposed DEA model, the balance index is introduced to solve the ranking problem of decision-making units effectively. Findings The results show that the proposed method can not only measure the efficiency of the existence of uncertain information but also deal with the ranking of multiple efficient decision-making units. Originality/value This paper selects type-2 fuzzy DEA model to express a lot of uncertain information in efficiency evaluation problems. We use the parameter decomposition method of type-2 fuzzy programming or the type-2 expectation values indirectly. The balance index is proposed to further distinguish the multiple effective decision-making units. Furthermore, this paper selects rural poverty alleviation in Hainan Province as a case study to verify the feasibility of the method. The relative efficiency values in different years are calculated and analyzed.