Socio-Economic Planning Sciences xxx (xxxx) xxx Please cite this article as: Massimiliano Giacalone, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2020.100952 Available online 18 September 2020 0038-0121/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Invited paper Dynamic effciency evaluation of Italian judicial system using DEA based Malmquist productivity indexes Massimiliano Giacalone a, * , Eugenia Nissi b , Carlo Cusatelli c a University of Naples “Federico II”, Department of Economics and Statistics, Italy b University of Chieti-Pescara “Gabriele D’Annunzio”, Department of Economics, Italy c University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Jonian Department in “Legal and Economic Systems of the Mediterranean: Society, Environment, Culture", Italy A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Judicial system Courts Data envelopment analysis Effciency evaluation Malmquist indexes ABSTRACT The aim of this study is the empirical analysis of the Italian judicial system, measuring its effciency and pro- ductivity. For this purpose, in details, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist indexes were used, since they are recognized by the current literature as successful techniques to evaluate the performance of de- cision making units, namely the courts of law in our feld of application. The statistical data on the administration of justice in Italy, as reported in Dossier n. 11 May 2013, Senate Research Services, Research Offce on Institutional Issues, Justice and Culture, XVII legislature, shows that the effciency crisis of justice in Italy began in the 1970s of the last century, aggravating during the ‘80s, and reaching its most critical moment during the 1990s. Several studies emphasize the relevance of the effects of ineffciency upon the judicial system on the credit and fnancial markets. The present analysis, using data that covers a wide time span and is disaggregated at district level, has set the goal of measuring the effciency of the individual Italian judicial offces while assessing the progress of pro- ductivity in its components, by the means of technological progress and scale effciency. The effciency analysis that was carried out transcends the aspect of judicial taxation, considering how the passage of time has impacted on judicial effciency. Considering the judges and judicial administration employed, in the new, pending and fnished cases during the years ranging from 2011 to 2016, the results highlighted a distinct heterogeneity among courts, depending on their geographical location. The fve-year period that was considered, included the years in which the judicial geographical distribution reform entered into force, so to better comprehend how this complex reform infuenced the recovery of effciency of the judicial offces. Furthermore, by breaking down the index into change in eff- ciency and change in technology, this work offers a further glimpse into judiciary organization. The application of combined DEA method and Malmquist indexes for evaluating court effciency in a large time frame showed very interesting and useful results, relevant for judicial administration. 1. Introduction The effciency of the judicial system should be one of the main ob- jectives of every democratic state, mainly to prevent the continuation of uncertainty, from a legal and procedural point of view, which can cause prejudice and harm to those who are subjected to a trial. Effciency, in economic theory, generally consists of the ability to use resources in order to obtain the maximum amount of output with the available production factors or use the best amount of input to produce a pre- determined quantity of output [1]. In several countries, economic development has boosted the mobility of population, changing the distribution of litigation. Hence, the increasing difference between the new demand of legal services and the old judicial maps has increased processing time and backlog, therefore, badly affecting judiciary effciency. These issues are particularly rele- vant for the Italian judicial system because of the Italian government’s proposal (decree n. 155/2012) of a new judicial map for frst instance courts. The courts’ reorganization has been achieved through the hori- zontal merging of some courts and the abolition of all local courthouses. The years in which the important reform, foreseen by the legislative decrees 155 and 156 of 7 September 2012, entered into force were taken into consideration. These decrees provided the revision of the judicial * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: massimiliano.giacalone@unina.it (M. Giacalone), eugenia.nissi@unich.it (E. Nissi), carlo.cusatelli@uniba.it (C. Cusatelli). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Socio-Economic Planning Sciences journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/seps https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2020.100952 Received 27 May 2020; Received in revised form 11 September 2020; Accepted 13 September 2020