Are teaching and research complementary or substitute activities? An empirical assessment

This paper is an attempt to gain an insight into the measurement of technical efficiency and the trade-offs between teaching and research, in Spanish public universities from 1994 to 2004. To measure efficiency, we apply the bootstrap-based approach to estimate bias corrected Data Envelopment Analysis and to test Returns to Scale. To measure trade-offs, we use a conditional robust nonparametric approach. Our results show that good educational efficiency does not detract from research efficiency, and that a greater number of publications increases educational efficiency.