Measuring E-government performance of provincial government website in China with slacks-based efficiency measurement

• Evaluate e-government performances of 31 provincial government websites in China using DEA.
• Analyze e-government efficiency differences both in different individual provinces and in different districts.
• The less developed western provinces achieve a higher efficiency mean than the eastern and middle ones in China.

As the rapid development of the information science and technology especially the network technique, e-government has a very promising application foreground. E-government acts as a quite new form of government affairs and also an effective exploration of government innovation. The development and popularizing of the network puts forward a new request and challenge to the government. This paper devotes to evaluate e-government performances of 31 provincial government websites in China using the method of DEA. Research results show that most of these provincial government websites operate at an inefficient level and in a bad manner. Moreover, the e-government efficiency differences lie in both different individual provinces and different districts. It is confirmed that the less developed western provinces achieve a higher efficiency mean than the eastern and middle ones.