A Socio-ecological Approach to Measure Progress for Ontario’s Transition to a Green Economy: The Use of the Happy Planet Index

Government tends to look at economic growth and GDP as the primary measure of wellbeing in society. However, GDP does not consider many environmental impacts which have critical short and long-term economic effects. Due to this miscalculation about the concept of wellbeing, governments may downplay the ecological implications of growth and its contribution to inequality and poverty. Alternative measures to GDP exist to address the social and environmental aspects needed for a sustainable society. Alternative means are usually evaluated at the national level, but due to the Canadian political separation of powers and responsibilities, provincial governments have more responsibilities for environmental and social policy. This research paper explores the Happy Planet Index (HPI) in Ontario for over ten years, evaluating to what extent the Happy Planet Index addresses flaws in a GDP-based policy framework in Ontario. HPI is an eco-efficiency indicator which measures sustainable well-being, enabling policymakers to create effective policies towards the achievement of long, happy, and sustainable lives. HPI incorporates social and environmental variables which can be used by the provincial government in policy evaluation. The index includes three indicators: life satisfaction, a subjective measure of wellbeing that looks from the individual’s perspective on how people rank their happiness and life satisfaction; health-adjusted life expectancy, the average number of years that an individual is expected to live in a healthy state, or the average lifetime someone is expected to live; and ecological footprint, which measures a person’s consumption of nature

Effects of Changes in Public Policy on Efficiency and Productivity of General Hospitals in Vietnam

The health sector reform programme which began in Vietnam in 1989 in order to improve the efficiency of the health system has altered the way in which Vietnamese hospitals operate. The programme put the spotlight on input savings. This study aims to examine the relative efficiency of hospitals during the health reform process and assess - by looking at the relative efficiency of hospitals - the effects of the regulatory changes. The study employs the DEA two-stage approach referring to data from 101 general public hospitals over the period 1998-2006. The study revealed that there was evidence of improvement in the productivity of Vietnamese hospitals over the period 1998-2006, with a progress in total factor productivity of 1.4% per year. Furthermore, the differences in hospital efficiency can be attributed to both the regulatory changes and hospital-specific characteristics. The user fees and autonomy measures were found to increase technical efficiency. Provincial hospitals were revealed to be more technically efficient than their central counterparts and hospitals located in the North East, South East and Mekong River Delta regions performed better that hospitals from other regions

Lessons Learned and Next Steps in Energy Efficiency Measurement and Attribution: Energy Savings, Net to Gross, Non-Energy Benefits, and Persistence of Energy Efficiency Behavior

This white paper examines four topics addressing evaluation, measurement, and attribution of direct and indirect effects to energy efficiency and behavioral programs: Estimates of program savings (gross); Net savings derivation through free ridership / net to gross analyses; Indirect non-energy benefits / impacts (e.g., comfort, convenience, emissions, jobs); and, Persistence of savings

Counting Change: Measuring Health Care Prices, Costs, and Spending

Considers the accuracy and utility of current data on the determinants of healthcare costs, distorting factors that make measuring the costs of healthcare delivery difficult, the benefits of cost and spending measurement, and efforts to develop measures

Measuring the Performance of Livability Programs, MTI Report 12-06

This report analyzes the performance measurement processes adopted by five large “livability” programs throughout the United States. It compares and contrasts these programs by examining existing research in performance measurement methods. The “best practices” of the examined performance measurement methods for each program are explored and analyzed with respect to their key characteristics. The report entails an appropriately comprehensive literature review of the current research on performance measurement methods from the perspective of various stakeholders including the public and government agencies. Additionally, the results of this literature review are used to examine the actual performance measures of the target programs from the perspective of different stakeholders. The goal of the report is to determine what did and did not work in these programs and their measurement methods, while making recommendations based on the results of the analysis for potential future programs

Chance-Constrained Efficiency Analysis

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is extended to the case of stochastic inputs and outputs through the use of chance-constrained programming. The chance-constrained envelope envelops a given set of observations "most of the time." We show that the chance-constrained enveloping process leads to the definition of a conventional (certainty-equivalent) efficiency ratio (a ratio between weighted outputs and weighted inputs). Furthermore, extending the concept of Pareto and Koopmans efficiency to the case of chance-constrained dominance (to be defined), we establish the identity of the following two chance-constrained efficiency concepts: (i) the chance constrained DEA efficiency measure of a particular output-input point is unity, and all chance-constraints are binding; (ii) the point is efficient in the sense Pareto and Koopmans. Finally we discuss the implications of our approach for econometric frontier analysis.IC2 Institut

Index to NASA Tech Briefs, 1975

This index contains abstracts and four indexes--subject, personal author, originating Center, and Tech Brief number--for 1975 Tech Briefs