Efficiency, at least in physics and engineering, is a measure of: benefit_metric / expenditure_metric, typically work_out / work_in. If I understand correctly, that's the 'technical efficiency' you mention. For economic and dynamic you say "depends on complex factors, relationships, growth etc'' ok, sure, but to talk about efficiency don't we still need to pick and stick to some metrics? For example: (some growth metric)/(number of employees), A question and a remark: 1. However many complex, hard-to-quantify terms we want to use, don't we have to come up with a benefit/cost formula (model) in order to talk about efficiency meaningfully? 2. Everything has dynamic elements, even a simple machine's efficiency does still depend on how often it needs repair, user interface that allows faster operation/fewer errors etc. My point is, if we want to talk about efficiency, we need to decide how much complexity makes sense to bake into a model and then go write down that model in a benefit/cost formulation and use it. Isn't it?
Whats your question? Economics is about time distance and value for money, all these things have to make sense (benefit). E.g., apple in china. Moving manufacturing to zimbabwe would be extremely economically inefficient in terms of time to build(knowledge base), distance to market. On and on. Hope that helps
