Determinants Of Environmental Efficiency Research Articles

Determinants of environmental efficiency and sources of productivity change in the manufacturing sector: A comparative analysis between Europe and Asia

The paper measures environmental efficiency and productivity change to then carry out a decomposition analysis of an environmental efficiency index and a productivity change index. The paper includes a novel comparative assessment to determine the drivers of environmental efficiency and the sources of productivity change of the manufacturing sector in Europe, Asia and the whole world. We explore the capability to convert in an environmentally efficient way, selected inputs into desirable and undesirable outputs. Our estimation results of environmental efficiency confirm that Europe is ahead the world's average. Our analysis shows, however, a slowdown of Europe compared with the productivity growth of Asia. The latter shows a better performance in management capabilities, optimal resource allocation, and economies of scale. The analysis carried out in a second stage using the dynamic effects of the generalized method of moments also shows that the annual growth rate of manufacturing value added and manufacturing exports positively influence the level of environmental efficiency in both Asia and Europe. Therefore, the internationalization and extroversion of manufacturing can be crucial for sustainable development in Europe and Asia.

Regional differences and determinants of environmental efficiency in China's road transportation industry

The spatial imbalance of road transportation hinders environmental efficiency (EE) improvement. Moreover, the driving factors and evolutionary characteristics of EE regional differences remain unclear. To clarify these, we calculate the EE of thirty Chinese provincial road transportation industries from 2008 to 2020. We also investigate regional difference decomposition and EE evolution trends while exploring the drivers of EE in three regions. The results show that the overall EE presented a fluctuating upward trend and evident spatial differences. Transvariation intensity was the primary source of the widening gaps in provincial EEs nationwide. Additionally, technological progress and increasing water and railway transport contribute to improving the eastern region's EE while decreasing the EE of the central region. Rising population scale improves the EE of the eastern and central regions, while strict environmental regulation improves the western region's EE. Road infrastructure improvements prominently increase the EEs in all three regions.

Modelling regional environmental efficiency differentials of dairy farms on the island of Ireland

Environmental pressures associated with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are likely to be an important policy issue on the island of Ireland, made up of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland following the abolition of the European Union (EU) milk quota system in 2015. In this study, we assessed the environmental performance of dairy farms in terms of N and P efficiency in the four regions of the island of Ireland using a novel environmental data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. The determinants of environmental efficiency were also analysed in a second stage analysis, using a truncated linear regression model with bootstrapped non-parametric DEA environmental efficiency estimates as the dependent variable. We find regional differences in environmental performance across the four regions of Ireland with greater nutrient surpluses in Northern Ireland compared to the three regions in the Republic of Ireland. However, computed indices from the environmental DEA technology which simultaneously accounts for the expansion of desirable outputs (milk and other outputs) and reduction in undesirable outputs (N and P surpluses), showed higher environmental performance index for Northern Ireland compared to the regions of the Republic of Ireland. Utilized agricultural area, forage grazed per hectare and adoption of milk recording were found to be significant factors influencing environmental efficiency in the Republic of Ireland while only forage grazed per hectare was statistically significant for Northern Ireland.

Analysis of environmental efficiency variations: A nutrient balance approach

Recent literature has argued that environmental efficiency (EE), which is built on the materials balance (MB) principle, is more suitable than other EE measures in situations where the law of mass conversation regulates production processes. In addition, the MB-based EE method is particularly useful in analysing possible trade-offs between cost and environmental performance. Identifying determinants of MB-based EE can provide useful information to decision makers but there are very few empirical investigations into this issue. This article proposes the use of data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis techniques to analyse variation in MB-based EE. Specifically, the article develops a stochastic nutrient frontier and nutrient inefficiency model to analyse determinants of MB-based EE. The empirical study applies both techniques to investigate MB-based EE of 96 rice farms in South Korea. The size of land, fertiliser consumption intensity, cost allocative efficiency, and the share of owned land out of total land are found to be correlated with MB-based EE. The results confirm the presence of a trade-off between MB-based EE and cost allocative efficiency and this finding, favouring policy interventions to help farms simultaneously achieve cost efficiency and MP-based EE.