Prioritization of Russian Regions for Sustainable Investing Purposes Using Data Envelopment Analysis

Abstract

In the article we propose to use recently developed method, namely the robust shared-input Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), to estimate the attractiveness of regions in the view of Sustainable Investing (SI). We apply DEA method over all regions of Russian Federation to identify a preferred alternative, to rank the alternatives in a decreasing order of preference and to classify the alternatives into a small number of categories for SI purposes using social-economic data for the latest available period (2013) and mathematical programming tools (Linear programming in RStudio). We argue that too little attention has been paid to the way regional sustainability and its determinants should be empirically analyzed. This article aims at presenting a methodology that provides a convenient and scientifically sound way of evaluation and monitoring of efficiency of SI in Russian regions. In order to determine possible practical application of obtained results, in our article we highlighted the role of hybrid financing in the frame of sustainable development and analyzed current gaps in the Russian legislation. It is hoped that this article will be useful for practitioners who are engaged in research and applications of operations research and performance measurement, including those who work in the field of economics.