Efficiency evaluation of urban employee’s basic endowment insurance expenditure in China based on a three-stage DEA model

With the deepening of population aging, the expenditure of basic endowment insurance in China is increasing. The urban employees’ basic endowment insurance(UEBEI) system for is an important part of China’s basic social endowment insurance system, which is the most important institutional guarantee for the basic needs of employees after retirement. It not only relates to the living standards of retired employees but also relates to the stability of the whole society. Especially considering the acceleration of urbanization process, the financial sustainability of the basic endowment insurance for employees is of great significance for safeguarding the pension rights of retired employees and realizing the normal operation of the whole system, and the operation efficiency of urban employees’ basic endowment insurance(UEBEI) fund inevitably becomes the focus of increasing attention. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2016 to 2020, this paper established a three-stage DEA-SFA model, and compared the differences of comprehensive technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency with radar chart, aiming to explore the operating efficiency of the UEBEI in China and how environmental factors affect it. The empirical results show that at present, the overall level of the expenditure efficiency of the UEBEI fund for urban workers is not high, and all provinces have not reached the efficiency frontier level, and there is still a certain space for efficiency improvement. Fiscal autonomy and elderly dependency ratio are negatively correlated with fund expenditure efficiency, while urbanization level and marketization level are positively correlated with fund expenditure efficiency. The regional difference of fund operation efficiency is significant, from high to low, it is East China, Central China and West China. Reasonable control of environmental variables and narrowing of regional economic development and fund expenditure efficiency differences can provide some enlightenment for better realization of common prosperity.