Sustainable Human Development at the Municipal Level: A Data Envelopment Analysis Index

Pedro A B Lima,Diogo Ferraz,Gilberto D Paião Júnior,Marcelo Furlan,Rosane A G Battistelle,Enzo B Mariano,Thalita L Santos,Gustavo H R Silva

doi:10.3390/infrastructures7020012

Abstract

The development of indexes for human development and environmental sustainability issues are an emerging topic in the current literature. However, the literature has put less emphasis on municipal indexes, which is the focus of this research. In this paper, we considered municipal environmental management as the adoption of environmental activities and the development of infrastructural and technical capacities in municipalities. This article aims to create a sustainable human development index with municipal data from the state of São Paulo in Brazil. Using information from the Municipal Human Development Index (IDHm) and the GreenBlue Municipal Program (PMVA), we applied the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique to connect human development and environmental sustainability in 645 Brazilian municipalities. Our findings show that regions with higher human development present better DEA scores on the Sustainable Human Development Index. In contrast, regions with a low or a middle level of human development do not present significant change considering both dimensions. Moreover, our findings reveal that PMVA certification has a different and statistically significant impact on the DEA score considering certified, qualified, or not qualified regions. We found similar results for urbanized and service-oriented municipalities. Our indicator is an essential and straightforward tool for regional policymakers, helping to allocate resources and to find human development and environmental sustainability benchmarks among developing regions.

Highlights

We present the research framework (Figure 1), where we describe the relationship between human development and environmental action in order to generate sustainable human development
In this research, we suggest that the increase in human development, including better levels of health, education, and resources, positively affects municipal environmental management, which supports the development of better infrastructure, management practices, and policies, which in turn supports the increase in human development
data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a non-parametric technique developed by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes [51], being a mathematical model based on linear programming capable of allocating the set of optimal weights to maximize the efficiency of a decisionmaking unit (DMU) [1], which is the DEA unit of analysis

Summary

Introduction

Development indexes that only measure economic aspects, such as gross domestic product (GDP), are increasingly being considered inadequate to measure the development of a region [1]. In this way, other important dimensions for human life were incorporated in development indexes, such as health and education, which are present in the Human. Development Index (HDI) [2,3]. In this context, some authors have been proposing adaptations and new ways of measuring the HDI, including environmental sustainability indicators, in what can be called the Sustainable Human Development Index (SDHI) [2]. Furlan and Mariano [6]

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