This paper aims at integrating data envelopment analysis (DEA) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to
evaluate the economic development achieved by local governments in China. Since most similar evaluations
are multi-objection problems, which both DEA and AHP are capable of solving, the integration of
these two approaches is shown to be even more powerful. The proposed integrated DEA/AHP model
can evaluate and rank different alternatives. In addition, a time-scale comparison of the economic performances
of local governments in China was carried out using the malmquist productivity index (MPI),
which indicated that there is a trend of economic growth. However, empirical results indicate that after
discounting the advantages of location and political connections, the east district provinces of China do
not have superior economic performance or a better MPI index, as compared with other districts. This
result is contrary to our original hypothesis.