Cui, Claire MurongHarrison, Julie ANg, FrederickRouse, Paul2025-06-122025-06-122025-01-14Journal of Productivity Analysis, ISSN: 0895-562X (Print); 1573-0441 (Online), Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 63(2), 219-237. doi: 10.1007/s11123-024-00749-90895-562X1573-0441http://hdl.handle.net/10292/19302Due to the increasing availability of large-scale digitalized databases containing summarized financial accounting measures, a growing number of DEA models are using these variables. Where only accounting measures are used, we term these “FinDEA” models. Accounting measures are subject to accounting choices regarding recognition and measurement, which means that they are not necessarily equivalent to direct measures of underlying physical measures more commonly used in DEA. This paper investigates the impact of accounting choices on FinDEA results related to alternative accounting measures of capital. Using both simulated and real-world data, we find that accounting choices impact FinDEA results, with the magnitude influenced by the heterogeneity of the accounting choices and sample sizes. Our results suggest that the variations in accounting choices need to be considered as part of an assessment of the homogeneity of inputs and outputs when designing DEA models using accounting measures.Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.38 Economics3801 Applied Economics3802 Econometrics3803 Economic Theory1401 Economic Theory1402 Applied Economics1403 EconometricsData envelopment analysisFirm performanceAccounting informationAccounting choicesJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1007/s11123-024-00749-9