Expressing a gold-medal performance in public-sector efficiency by the number 1, the economists scored all other competitor countries as percentages of the first-place finish. With an input rating of 0.75, Canada’s 12th-place finish meant it spent 25 per cent more money than it needed to spend – that it could have attained the same results by spending only 75 per cent of the money it spent. You could put it another way. The Canadian government wasted one dollar for every four dollars it spent.
Input, output: We need a public-sector Olympics - The Globe and Mail