DIRECTIONAL RETURNS TO SCALE OF BIOLOGICAL INSTITUTES IN CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

This paper aims to investigate the directional returns to scale of 15 biological institutes in Chinese Academy of Sciences. Firstly, the input-output indicators are proposed, including Staff, Research funding, SCI papers, High-quality papers and Graduates training, etc. Secondly, this paper uses the methods proposed by Yang (2012) to analyze the directional returns to scale and the effect of directional congestion of biological institutes in Chinese Academy of Sciences. Based on the analytical results, we have the following findings: (1) we can detect the region of increasing (constant, decreasing) directional returns to scale for each biological institute. This information can be used as one of the basis of decision-making on organizational adjustment; (2) we find that the effect of congestion and directional congestion occurs in several biological institutes. On this occasion, the outputs of these institutes will decrease with the inputs increase. So, these institutes should analyze the deep reason for the occurrence of congestion effect so that science and technology (S&T) resources can be used more effectively.