Identifying Subareas That Comprise A Greater Metropolitan Area: The Criterion of County Relative Efficiency
使用数据包络分析（DEA）对明尼阿波利斯-圣保罗大都市区的32个县进行效率排序，发现外部经济从核心向边缘递减，并据此划分核心、过渡和外围区域。
Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to rank the relative efficiency of thirty–two counties comprising the Greater Minneapolis–St. Paul Metropolitan Region and finds that the greatest external economies originate in the urban core and decline toward the periphery. By employing 1993 IMPLAN input–output database and county estimates of final payments (inputs) and final demands (outputs), DEA classifies efficient and inefficient counties that produce maximum output using minimum input, and a sensitivity analysis ranks counties according to robustness of the efficiency classifications. Efficiency differences between three groups identify the metropolitan core, transitional region, and peripheral region. Dominant industries in the three regions are identified and contrasted using location quotients. This study adopts the various analytical techniques into an urban regional systems approach for policy analysis and implementation.