Green Biased Technical Change in Terms of Industrial Water Resources in China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt

As a significant ecological corridor from west to east across China, the Yangtze River Economical Belt (YREB) is in great need of green development and transformation. Rather than only focusing on the overall growth of green productivity, it is important to identify whether the technical change is biased towards economic performance or green performance in promoting green productivity. By employing the biased technical change theory and Malmquist index decomposition method, we analyze the green biased technical change in terms of industrial water resources in YREB at the output side and the input side respectively. We find that the green biased technical change varies during 2006–2015 at both the input side and output side in YREB. At the input side, water-saving biased technical change is generally dominant compared to water-using biased technical change during 2006–2015, presenting the substitution effects of non-water production factors. At the output side, the economy-growth biased technical change is the main force to promote green productivity, whereas the role of water-conservation biased technical change is insufficient. The green performance at the output side needs to be strengthened compared to the economic performance in YREB. A series of water-related environmental policies introduced in China since 2008 have promoted the green biased technical change both at the input side and the output side in YREB, but the policy effects at the output side is still inadequate compared to that at the input side. The technological innovation in sewage treatment and control need to catch up with the economic growth in YREB. Our research gives insights to enable a deeper understanding of the green biased technical change in YREB and will benefit more focused policy-making of green innovation

A novel inverse DEA model with application to allocate the CO2 emissions quota to different regions in Chinese manufacturing industries

This paper aims to address the problem of allocating the CO2 emissions quota set by government goal in Chinese manufacturing industries to different Chinese regions. The CO2 emission reduction is conducted in a three-stage phases. The first stage is to obtain the total amount CO2 emission reduction from the Chinese government goal as our total CO2 emission quota to reduce. The second stage is to allocate the reduction quota to different two-digit level manufacturing industries in China. The third stage is to further allocate the reduction quota for each industry into different provinces. A new inverse data envelopment analysis (InvDEA) model is developed to achieve our goal to allocate CO2 emission quota under several assumptions. At last we obtain the empirical results based on the real data from Chinese manufacturing industries

Environmental Regulation and Productivity Growth: A Study of the APEC Economies

Environmental regulation has become more and more important in policy making among the world economies. How has it affected productivity growth and hence economic growth? The answer to this question is either controversial or yet to be explored in many cases. The objective of this paper is to present a case study of 17 Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies. A directional distance function approach is employed to estimate output-oriented Malmquist-Luenberger productivity indices. The latter are in turn decomposed into efficiency changes and technological progress. Work in this paper differs from the existing literature by taking into consideration of the impact of environmental regulation on productivity growth. Three scenarios are modeled, ie. no control on CO2 emissions (unregulated), maintaining current emission level and a partial reduction of emissions. In general, it is found that the rates of productivity growth incorporating CO2 as an undesirable output are slightly higher than those estimated following the traditional method. Furthermore, the causes of productivity changes are also investigated in this paper.Technical efficiency, technological progress, total factor productivity, directional distance functions, Malmquist–Luenberger index, DEA

Total Factor Environmental Productivity in the Mediterranean Countries: A Malmquist–Luenberger Index Approach

This paper examines the environmental productivity in the Mediterranean countries over the period 2009-2014.We use the Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (MLPI) that can handle undesirable outputs within Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. We decompose the MLPI index into technical efficiency, technological change and scale efficiency change in order to determine the source of productivity changes. Empirical findings indicate that the total factor environmental productivity in the Mediterranean countries have a negative developmental trend. Furthermore, we find that technological progress is the main source of productivity growth. Finally, Mediterranean countries need a considerable effort on R&D to optimize the potential for technical development and enhance the environmental efficiency levels

CO2 emissions reduction of Chinese light manufacturing industries:a novel RAM-based global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index

Climate change has become one of the most challenging issues facing the world. Chinese government has realized the importance of energy conservation and prevention of the climate changes for sustainable development of China's economy and set targets for CO2 emissions reduction in China. In China industry contributes 84.2% of the total CO2 emissions, especially manufacturing industries. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity (MP) index are the widely used mathematical techniques to address the relative efficiency and productivity of a group of homogenous decision making units, e.g. industries or countries. However, in many real applications, especially those related to energy efficiency, there are often undesirable outputs, e.g. the pollutions, waste and CO2 emissions, which are produced inevitably with desirable outputs in the production. This paper introduces a novel Malmquist-Luenberger productivity (MLP) index based on directional distance function (DDF) to address the issue of productivity evolution of DMUs in the presence of undesirable outputs. The new RAM (Range-adjusted measure)-based global MLP index has been applied to evaluate CO2 emissions reduction in Chinese light manufacturing industries. Recommendations for policy makers have been discussed

Environmental regulation and green productivity growth: Evidence from Italian manufacturing industries

Environmental policy is at the core of the current research debate and policy action. Few studies have discussed the impact of environmental regulation on productivity growth at industry level, and the empirical evidence on this issue is still controversial. Based on panel data on thirteen Italian manufacturing industries from 1995 to 2017, this study analyzes the effect of environmental policies on sectoral productivity by measuring the adjusted productivity growth using the Malmquist-Luenberger index. The main result of this analysis is that environmental regulation has no negative effect in most of the sample industries. A bootstrapping approach has been used to assess the robustness of estimated results

Energy and CO2 emissions performance in China's regional economies: Do market-oriented reforms matter?

【Abstract】This paper employs a newly developed non-radial directional distance function to evaluate China's regional energy and CO2 emission performance for the period 1997–2009. Moreover, we analyze the impact of China's market-oriented reform on China's regional energy and carbon efficiency. The main findings are as follows. First, most of China's regions did not perform efficiently in energy use and CO2 emissions. Provinces in the east area generally performed better than those in the central and west areas.By contrast, provinces in the west area generally evidenced the lowest efficiency. Second, Market-or-iented reforms, especially the promotion of factor market, were found to have positive effect on the efficiency of energy use and CO2 emissions. Third, the share of coal in the total energy consumption and the expansion of the industrial sector were found to be negatively correlated with China's regional energy and CO2 emissions performance. Based on the empirical findings, we provide policy suggestions for enhancing energy and carbon efficiency in China.This paper is supported by the Research Fund of Newhuadu Business School, Ministry of Education Foundation (Funding no.10JZD0018), Basic Research Universities Special Foundation (Funding no.2010221051), Ministry of Education Foundation (Funding no. 10JBG013) and National Social Science Foundation (Funding no.09&ZD050). Kerui Du thanks the financial support of Yinxing Economic Research Fund

Strategy Tripod Perspective on the Determinants of Airline Efficiency in A Global Context: An Application of DEA and Tobit Analysis

The airline industry is vital to contemporary civilization since it is a key player in the globalization process: linking regions, fostering global commerce, promoting tourism and aiding economic and social progress. However, there has been little study on the link between the operational environment and airline efficiency. Investigating the amalgamation of institutions, organisations and strategic decisions is critical to understanding how airlines operate efficiently. This research aims to employ the strategy tripod perspective to investigate the efficiency of a global airline sample using a non-parametric linear programming method (data envelopment analysis [DEA]). Using a Tobit regression, the bootstrapped DEA efficiency change scores are further regressed to determine the drivers of efficiency. The strategy tripod is employed to assess the impact of institutions, industry and resources on airline efficiency. Institutions are measured by global indices of destination attractiveness; industry, including competition, jet fuel and business model; and finally, resources, such as the number of full-time employees, alliances, ownership and connectivity. The first part of the study uses panel data from 35 major airlines, collected from their annual reports for the period 2011 to 2018, and country attractiveness indices from global indicators. The second part of the research involves a qualitative data collection approach and semi-structured interviews with experts in the field to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on the first part’s significant findings. The main findings reveal that airlines operate at a highly competitive level regardless of their competition intensity or origin. Furthermore, the unpredictability of the environment complicates airline operations. The efficiency drivers of an airline are partially determined by its type of business model, its degree of cooperation and how fuel cost is managed. Trade openness has a negative influence on airline efficiency. COVID-19 has toppled the airline industry, forcing airlines to reconsider their business model and continuously increase cooperation. Human resources, sustainability and alternative fuel sources are critical to airline survival. Finally, this study provides some evidence for the practicality of the strategy tripod and hints at the need for a broader approach in the study of international strategies

APPLICATION OF DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS AND MALMQUIST INDEX ON THE MEASUREMENT OF EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY: A CASE STUDY OF RUBBER PRODUCTION IN SOUTHERN THAILAND

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relative technical efficiency of rubber production in Southern of Thailand using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) during the period 2007–2016. Moreover, Malmquist productivity index (MPI) was used to investigate the changes of rubber production efficiency and estimates of the rubber productivity trend. The findings indicated that Trang city has most effective and suitable for the production of rubber when compared to other cities in Southern Thailand. On the other hand, the results also showed that Phuket city has worst scores of efficiency and declination of rubber production. Moreover, MPI model showed the upward productivity trend of rubber production during the time period of the study. The findings from this study can provide important information to farmers, rubber research institutes and Thai government for determining effective strategies to improve productivity and technical efficiency of rubber production. Thai government and rubber research institutes should provide the knowledge, management skills and correct production skills for rubber farmers. Furthermore, rubber research institutes should be at the forefront to increase the rubber yields and provide funding to farmers for increase sustainable rubber production.&nbsp