Managerial Disposability Research Articles

Difficulties and remedies on DEA environmental assessment

This study discusses a DEA approach for environmental assessment. The proposed approach examines a level of simultaneous achievement on economic prosperity and environmental protection, so measuring the level of “sustainability.” DEA, standing for Data Envelopment Analysis, has been widely applied for performance assessment in the past five decades. A new type of methodology is referred to as “DEA environmental assessment,” and it measures the performance of various organizations that use inputs to produce not only desirable outputs (e.g., electricity) but also undesirable outputs (e.g., CO2 emission). In this study, we discuss various methodological concerns by considering theoretical and empirical difficulties related to the use of DEA environmental assessment. These difficulties include (a) how to incorporate two separated (natural and managerial) disposability concepts into a unified framework of DEA environmental assessment, (b) how to reorganize unified disposability concepts in the proposed approach, (c) how to incorporate an occurrence of undesirable congestion (e.g., a line capacity limit on transmission) and desirable congestion (e.g., possible occurrence of green technology innovation) and (d) how to manage a data set that contains zero and negative values. It is easily expected that these explorations enhance the practicality of DEA environmental assessment.

Social Sustainability Assessment across Provinces in China: An Analysis of Combining Intermediate Approach with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Window Analysis

There are two categories (i.e., radial and non-radial category) in conventional DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis). Recently, intermediate approach was put forward as a new third category. Intermediate approach is a newly proposed approach and there are quite limited related studies. This study contributes to the DEA studies by putting forward an analytical framework of combining intermediate approach and DEA window analysis along with the concepts of natural and managerial disposability. Such combination is quite meaningful and this new approach has three important features. To the best of our knowledge, such type of research has never been investigated by the existing studies. As an application, this approach is used to evaluate the performance of provinces in China from 2007 to 2014. Furthermore, this study develops a series of performance indices from different perspectives. This study identifies the three important findings. Firstly, eco-technology advancements can achieve economic prosperity and environmental protection simultaneously, and thus should become a new direction of climate policies. Secondly, considerable differences exist in a series of indices that evaluates the performance of various provinces and pollutants from different respective. Then, sufficient attention should be given to the provinces and the pollutants with poor performance. Finally, the Chinese government should promote efficiency improvement by “catching up” for provinces with poor performance in the short term. In addition, the central government should reduce regional disparity in order to promote the social sustainability in the long term.

DEA environmental assessment on US petroleum industry: Non-radial approach with translation invariance in time horizon

This study empirically assesses the performance of the petroleum industry, focusing upon independent companies, in the United States (US). For the empirical study, we use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) that has been widely used for environmental assessment and performance measurement. The conventional use of DEA requests that all observations in the data set should be positive, prohibiting an occurrence of zero and/or negative values. The requirement of non-negative value is inconsistent with the reality of US petroleum industry, because many oil firms recently experience negative shocks in financial performance. To overcome the obstacle, this study discusses the property of “translation invariance” under undesirable congestion (e.g., capacity limit in the transportation pipeline network) and desirable congestion (e.g., green technology innovation) based on the non-radial models. The property implies that the unified efficiency measure should be not influenced even if production factors are shifted toward the same direction by adding or subtracting a specific real number. The property makes it possible that we can evaluate the performance of firms, whose production factors contain zero and/or negative values. This study is empirically concerned with practical implications of translation invariance from energy and environmental perspectives. In addition, this study examines the proposed environmental assessment in a time horizon. For the purpose, this study uses “window analysis” to examine an efficiency change along with a time shift. Our empirical investigation finds the following three implications. First, under the natural disposability, the oil firms' efficiency growth rates have become less than unity, implying the industry-wide difficulty or inability to cut back their drilling and production operations. Second, all firms have been under regulatory and stakeholder pressures on air pollution. Therefore, the efficiency growth rates under managerial disposability have not exhibited a major change during the observed annual periods. Finally, such implications are statistically reconfirmed by regression analysis that examines how the change of energy price influences unified efficiencies under natural and managerial disposability. An exception can be found in the natural disposability where energy prices influence their efficiency growths. Thus, an increase in energy prices is important in maintaining a high level of efficiency growths in the US petroleum industry.

Measuring energy usage and sustainability development in Asian nations by DEA intermediate approach

This study proposes a new use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) for assessing economic success and environmental protection, so measuring the level of sustainability. The new approach is referred to as “DEA environmental assessment,” and it can measure the performance of various entities that use inputs to produce not only desirable outputs but also undesirable outputs. DEA models are generally classified into radial or non-radial category. This study proposes a new “intermediate” approach between them. As an illustrative application, this study is interested in empirical assessment on energy usage and social sustainability of 21 Asian nations from 2008 to 2014. The energy usage, usually classified into primal (e.g., oil and coal) and secondary (i.e., electricity) categories, is essential in developing the economy, but the development simultaneously produces various pollutions (e.g., carbon emission). They have been developing their economic prosperities in a short period, but simultaneously suffering from such pollutions. All Asian nations are classified into four or five groups based upon their unified efficiency measures under natural disposability, where economic performance is the first priority and environmental performance is the second, along with managerial disposability with the opposite priority to the natural disposability. An implication found in this study is that among Asian nations, Japan and New Zealand belong to the first tier in terms of developing their social sustainability. Japan’s economy started to turn down after 2012 and faced a pitfall in recent years. Meanwhile, New Zealand has developed its economy by exporting agriculture products and is surrounded by natural beauty. Thus, the two nations are ranked as the top tier under the four types of unified efficiency measures. Beside these expected findings, this study has found that large nations such as China and India have not badly performed if we consider the size of their economies. This is a surprising result because they are large carbon emitters in the world and thereby they have been often criticized by international communities. Their problem is that the living standard of people is low because of the size of population. The empirical findings are useful in developing the energy and industrial policies of Asian nations.

Carbon Emission Performance of Independent Oil and Natural Gas Producers in the United States

The oil and natural gas producers have undergone a lot of pressures to curb their carbon emissions as part of the global efforts to address the climate change problem. This paper aims to examine the carbon emission performance of a set of independent oil and natural gas producers in the United States for the period 2011–2015. For each producer, we manually collect its drilling, oil production and gas production data from the annual reports, and extract the carbon emissions data from the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). We develop empirical models based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach and the Malmquist index measurement. The proposed DEA models generate unified efficiency scores to capture the carbon emission performance under natural disposability and managerial disposability respectively. Then the DEA-based Malmquist indexes are derived to measure the change of carbon emission performance over time. We are able to identify climate leaders and laggards among the producers. Furthermore, we find that the performance has improved from 2012 to 2015 under natural disposability. Under managerial disposability, the indexes exhibit significantly greater dispersions than the indexes under natural disposability, and there is an industry-wide loss of efficiency in terms of technical change. The sustainable development of the independent oil and gas producers requires them to invest more in emission mitigation measures, such as energy conservation, leak detection and repair, flaring reduction, and even renewable energy.

Environmental assessment and investment strategy for China's manufacturing industry: A non-radial DEA based analysis

Manufacturing industry is the pillar industry in China, making China become the world's manufacturing center. While, the rapid development of manufacturing industry in China not only promotes the economic growth, but also consumes lots of resources and generates too much carbon dioxide. To make a sustainable development, this paper adopts a non-radial DEA model with natural and managerial disposability to examine the energy-environmental performance of China's manufacturing industry during the 2006–2014 period. The energy-environmental performance is evaluated by the unified efficiency under natural and managerial disposability (UENM). Additionally, the investment strategy is confirmed by industrial types of damages to return (DTR). The empirical results indicate that the unified efficiencies of most manufacturing industries present a rising trend in the sample interval. Moreover, the unified efficiency of most manufacturing industries in light industry have a little higher value than the efficiency of those in heavy industry. Besides, the light industry presents more investment effect than the heavy industry, and many industries in heavy industry have little potential for investment in terms of developing the green growth. According to these results, China should increase investment and enhancing the R&D input to improve the unified efficiency of light industry. Policy support need focus on boosting innovation in strategic emerging industries instead of traditional manufacturing industries. Part of industries with excess capacity should be transferred to other countries through outbound investment.

Social Sustainability of Provinces in China: A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Window Analysis under the Concepts of Natural and Managerial Disposability

Natural and managerial disposability are two important strategic concepts, whose priorities are economic prosperity and environmental protection, respectively. This study defines social sustainability as the simultaneous achievement of economic prosperity and environmental protection, and then assesses the degree of social sustainability across provinces in China. In addition, this study combines the concepts of natural and managerial disposability with Data Envelopment Analysis window analysis. The method allows for frontier shifts among different time periods and thus can provide more stable and reliable results. This method is applied to assess the energy and environmental performances across the provinces of China during 2003–2014, and provides detailed information about provincial variations, which are valuable and important to policy makers (especially for those in local governments). This study identifies three important findings. First, there were no significant improvements in China’s environmental performance during the analysis periods, since, historically, the governments have not paid enough attention to environmental protection. Second, there are increasing trends in the provincial gaps regarding the environmental performance. In this regard, the central government should help the poor provinces to protect the environment. Third, there are significant differences between the results obtained under natural disposability and those obtained under managerial disposability, since they have different priorities regarding the operational and the environmental performances. Thus, significant contributions can be made by eco-technology progress combined with managerial performance improvements by business leaders and policy makers. This can be a new policy direction for the Chinese government.

Analysis of fire protection efficiency in the United States: a two-stage DEA-based approach

Fire-related hazards and incidents are a very common phenomenon that affects human society heavily, so many organisations, over a long period of time, have made efforts to mitigate fires and the caused damages. It is widely acknowledged that an evaluation of fire protection performance is critical for such efforts. In this paper, we propose a new data envelopment analysis-based approach for fire protection efficiency analysis in the United States at the state level. For this purpose, the fire protection system is generalised as an innovative two-stage network process, in which the fire hazard defence subsystem in the first stage is followed by a fire incident fighting subsystem in the second stage. Further, both intermediate outputs and final outputs are all undesirable measures. The fire protection expenditure, a kind of shared resources, is modelled under managerial disposability since it can be intentionally used to reduce fires and fire damages. Based on an empirical study of data from 2010 to 2014, we find that: (1) Texas, California, New York, Florida, and Illinois are the top five states prone to fire incidents. (2) The United States as a whole has an average fire protection efficiency of 0.590, implying relatively low fire protection performances at the state level. (3) Wyoming, Vermont, and Rhode Island are the top three most efficient states, whereas Iowa, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania are ranked the least efficient. Further, (4) the fire incident fighting efficiency is more likely to be higher than the fire hazard defence efficiency for most states. (5) Looking at larger scale by grouping all states into eight areas, the Far West has the highest fire protection efficiency, while Southeast and Plains areas have the lowest efficiency scores. Interestingly, (6) the results show also that a 1% increase in the fire protection expenditure by states per capita will result in a 2.6893% improvement in fire protection efficiency.

Malmquist index measurement for sustainability enhancement in Chinese municipalities and provinces

This study discusses a use of DEA environmental assessment in a time horizon. We use a radial approach to examine a dynamic change of index measures related to China's regional development and industrial pollution prevention. In applying the proposed assessment to a time-series data, we need to examine components that produce a shift of an efficiency frontier in a time horizon. A unique feature of the proposed assessment is that it incorporates a framework of Malmquist index to examine the frontier shift among multiple periods. Here, the frontier shift indicates a progress potential on technology development and/or managerial improvement among observed periods. Thus, it is not an efficiency measure. Rather, the measurement eliminates inefficiency by shifting an organization to an efficiency frontier. In this study, the index is conceptually separated into 6 subcomponents, which are further disaggregated into 12 different elements (6 subcomponents×2 disposability concepts) under natural and managerial disposability concepts. The proposed index measurement needs to consider a possible occurrence of a frontier crossover among different periods because technology diffusion on production activities usually has a time lag until it becomes really effective. Methodologically, this study conveys the message that DEA is an approximation method, so being not perfect. Therefore, it is necessary for us to use several different approaches (e.g., potential improvement by measuring a frontier shift and efficiency analysis) to obtain reliable empirical evidence. As an application, this study examines the level of sustainability related to 30 municipalities and provinces in China from 2003 to 2014. The following six policy implications are obtained in this study. First, all municipalities and provinces have made a considerable progress on their economies and pollution prevention efforts. Second, the effect of the frontier crossover is limited in China because they attain a high level of their potentials on economic development and pollution prevention. Of course, this effort is within the Chinese boundary, not international, because this study does not compare them with other industrial nations. Third, China needs to allocate its resources to western provinces at a level that it has used for coastal developments. Fourth, the government should reinforce efforts on environmental protection in central and southern regions. Fifth, the government has focused on the sustainability development in urban municipalities and provinces and then has gradually shifted the policy influence toward rural areas. Finally, different empirical results are confirmed by the potential analysis which consists of the Malmquist index measurement and the efficiency analysis. Both approaches need to be examined for future planning on Chinese regional development.

CNG2020 strategy and airline efficiency: A Network Epsilon-Based Measure with managerial disposability

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we analyze the impacts of CNG2020 strategy on the efficiency of 29 international airlines during 2021–2023. Predictions are made through neural networks based on the empirical data from 2008 to 2015. Following the principle of CNG2020 strategy, we calculate the emission limit for each airline. Then we propose a new model, Network Epsilon-Based Measure with managerial disposability, to discuss the difference in efficiency of the airlines when the CNG2020 strategy is considered. The main findings are: (1) For most of these 29 airlines, the CNG2020 strategy has little influence on their efficiency. (2) The efficiency has little variation under the following conditions: when the carbon price is 8 $/ton CO2-eq, when the price is 14 $/ton CO2-eq, and when the price is 20 $/ton CO2-eq. (3) Scandinavian is identified as the benchmarking airline.

Will airline efficiency be affected by “Carbon Neutral Growth from 2020” strategy? Evidences from 29 international airlines

In this paper, the impact of the “Carbon Neutral Growth from 2020” (CNG2020) strategy on airline efficiency is analyzed based on the predicted data of 29 international airlines during 2021–2023. The data is predicted through neural network. Following the principle of CNG2020 strategy, we calculate the emission limit for each airline. Two models, Network Range Adjusted Measure with natural disposability and Network Range Adjusted Measure with managerial disposability, are proposed to discuss the efficiency change when the CNG2020 strategy is considered. The following findings are gotten: 1. Under natural disposability, the indices related with undesirable output have a larger role in deciding benchmarking airline. 2. For most of the 29 airlines, CNG2020 strategy has little influence on their efficiency.

Service performance in public healthcare system: data envelopment analysis

As well as companies that compete in market, in public health system organizations compete to satisfy customer’s need, and therefore identifying those needs and delivering the value is critical in success. Return to Scale and Damage to Scale are measures. In this study data envelopment analysis is developed to measure the Return to Scale and Damage to Scale in public health organization. Two new assumptions for production possibility set are proposed as Weak Natural Disposability and weak managerial disposability. Then three types of models including efficiency evaluation, Return to Scale determination, and Damage to Scale determination are proposed based on radial and non-radial models.A case study is handled using real data of 33 hospitals in Tehran. Each hospital is assumed as a decisionmaking unit with 4 inputs, 2 desirable outputs, and 2 undesirable outputs. The proposed approachesare straightforward and applicable for real world problems.

Unified efficiency evaluation of regional industries in China: a nonradial directional distance function approach

ABSTRACTThis article extends a nonradial directional distance function (DDF) to allow decision-making units to adjust inputs in two directions. Based on this nonradial DDF, we evaluate the regional industrial unified efficiency (operational efficiency and environmental efficiency) in China between 2005 and 2014. We find that East China has the highest industrial unified efficiency score, followed by the West and Central China. To avoid methodological biases, three other models are also applied to assess the unified efficiency. The results indicate that a nonradial DDF under natural and managerial disposability (our model) has a greater discriminating power than a nonradial DDF under either of the disposabilities and the radial DDF.

Investigating multi-regional cross-industrial linkage based on sustainability assessment and sensitivity analysis: A case of construction industry in China

Construction industry is one of the most energy-intensive industries, and its output value plays a vital role in economic growth of China. It's expected to be valuable to investigate its sustainability and improvement paths under the background of environment-friendly and conservation-minded development. At first, we adopted a non-radial data envelopment analysis incorporating both natural and managerial disposability to study regional differences regards comprehensive performance of construction industry in China. And then, a multi-regional cross-industrial linkage analysis was carried out embodiment in the sustainable assessment and sensitivity analysis based on the Ghosh model. Accordingly, we intended to provide a systematic relational network focusing on the key provinces and industries which play important roles in improving the comprehensive performance of construction industry. In detail, Hebei, Shanghai, Hubei, Yunnan and Gansu were found to be the most inefficient on account of the results from sustainable assessment in 2007. In accordance with the results from the sensitivity analysis based on the regional input-output model, the adjustment of rationing in mining & processing of ores, manufacture of non-metallic mineral products and smelting & pressing of metals will effectively increase the comprehensive performance of construction industry in the above-mentioned provinces. Emphatically, the method integration used in this study, which could also be applied in other sectors and countries, is a new try to study an industry from the multi-regional and cross-industrial perspective.

Environmental assessment and investment strategies of provincial industrial sector in China — Analysis based on DEA model

As an energy-intensive industry, the industrial sector consumes 70% of energy consumption and causes serious environmental pollution in China. Also, the government emphasized the promotion of R&D investment in the industrial sector in China's National Plan on Climate Change (2014–2020). It is meaningful and contributes to assessing energy and environmental performance, as well as R&D and industrial pollution control (IPC) investment strategies of China's industrial sector. A non-radial DEA model, as with natural and managerial disposability, was adopted to evaluate this from provincial and regional perspectives during the 2008–2012 period. Energy and environmental performance was evaluated by unified efficiency under natural disposability (UEN), unified efficiency under managerial disposability (UEM), and unified efficiency under natural and managerial disposability (UENM). The empirical results indicated that Shandong and Hainan were efficient under natural and managerial disposability, while other provinces had the potential to improve their energy and environmental performance. The number of provinces that was fit for investments of R&D and IPC increased from 2008 to 2010, then decreased in 2011 and 2012. In spite of this, many provincial industrial sectors should make efforts to reduce pollution by investment on technology. Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Jiangxi and Henan were especially the best investment objects because investments of R&D and IPC turned to be effective for them during the whole study period. Moreover, western China had the highest average UENM, followed by eastern China and central China. Eastern China and central China were rewarding to expand investments. Coal consumption was the main factor to negatively affect unified efficiency whereas the increase in economic development level was primarily responsible for the improvement of unified efficiency. According to the results, differentiated suggestions to further improve energy and environmental performance were proposed.

Returns to damage under undesirable congestion and damages to return under desirable congestion measured by DEA environmental assessment with multiplier restriction: Economic and energy planning for social sustainability in China

This study discusses the concept of natural and managerial disposability from their economic and methodological implications on social sustainability development. Then, it explores their analytical linkages to a concept on “congestion.” The concept is classified into Undesirable Congestion (UC) under natural disposability and Desirable Congestion (DC) under managerial disposability. Considering the two disposability concepts, this study compares between Returns to Damage (RTD) under UC and Damages to Return (DTR) under DC. Conceptually, UC and DC are conceptually different from RTD and DTR although they are closely related to each other group. An occurrence of the former measures is identified by a single negative multiplier (i.e. dual variable). In contrast, the latter measures are associated with multiple negative multipliers and an intercept of a supporting hyperplane on a production and pollution possibility set. Thus, an occurrence of UC and DC is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition on RTD and DTR, respectively, in terms of the number of negative multipliers on production factors. To document the practicality of the proposed approach, this study applies it to Chinese economic and environmental assessment for its economic and energy planning for social sustainability development. This study identifies four important findings: First, the Chinese government has historically paid attention to the economic prosperity, but not paying serious attention on the environmental pollution (e.g., air pollution). Second, there was an increasing trend in improving the two components (i.e., economic and environmental performance measures) regarding social sustainability. Third, China's economic and energy policy concerns have been focused upon well-developed municipalities (e.g., Beijing and Shanghai) and large provinces. Therefore, it is an important strategy for the government to allocate economic and energy resources to other provinces so that China can reduce the industrial and regional imbalances. As a result, China can enhance the level of social sustainability. Finally, the municipalities need strict regulation on traffic control in these metropolitan areas and a fuel mix shift from coal combustion to natural gas and renewable energies (e.g., solar, water, and nuclear generations). The fuel mix strategy, along with the structure change (e.g., from manufacturing to service and from public to private energy firms), will be a major industrial policy issue for China in near future.

Marginal Rate of Transformation and Rate of Substitution measured by DEA environmental assessment: Comparison among European and North American nations

This study discusses the new use of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) environmental assessment to measure MRT (Marginal Rate of Transformation) and RS (Rate of Substitution) among production factors (e.g., inputs, desirable and undesirable outputs). To measure the degree on MRT and RS, this study first examines a concept of disposability from the perspective of economic strategies to combat various environmental issues. The strategies are extendable to a policy change for pollution prevention. The underlying concept is separated into natural and managerial disposability. Under managerial disposability, it is possible for us to measure an occurrence of desirable congestion, or eco-technology innovation. Considering the disposability concept, this study discusses how to measure the type and magnitude of MRT and RS. A problem of the MRT & RS measurement is that these measures usually become unstable (e.g., very large or small in these magnitudes) because DEA does not assume any functional form for economic activities. To overcome such a difficulty, this study equips DEA environmental assessment with multiplier restriction by utilizing a unique feature on a proposed data treatment. The multiplier restriction in DEA has been never explored in previous works on environmental assessment. In an application, this study finds three important economic concerns on Europe and North America. First, Western Europe outperforms Eastern Europe and North America in their unified efficiency measures under managerial disposability. This study statistically confirms a difference between Western and Eastern Europe, but not between Western Europe and North America. This result exhibits that Eastern Europe is not yet well developed at the level of the other two regions. Second, Eastern Europe has exhibited MRT estimates that are different from Western Europe and North America. The nations in Eastern Europe have an economic potential for industrial developments because the level of their industrial pollutions is less than that of the other two regions. The potential is also found in their MRT estimates. Finally, an interesting difference can be found in the RS estimate between Eastern Europe and Western Europe from 2008 to 2012. They have statistically exhibited a difference between the two regimes, but not with North America. This is because most nations in both Western Europe and North America have already attained a high level of economic successes so that they have a limited industrial potential under current production technology and eco-technology. The situation of the two regions will be changed along with new technology development. In contrast, Eastern Europe is different from the other two regions in terms of attaining such a level of social sustainability because of limited capital accumulation and limited opportunity for technology innovation.

Regional energy-environmental performance and investment strategy for China's non-ferrous metals industry: a non-radial DEA based analysis

Globally, China is the largest producer and consumer of common non-ferrous metals. China's non-ferrous metals industry is energy intensive, accounting for 24% of the total industrial energy consumption in 2011. In this study, we adopted a non-radial DEA model to examine the energy-environmental performance of the non-ferrous metals industry from a regional perspective during the 2006–2011 period. The energy-environmental performance was evaluated by the eco-efficiency under natural disposability (EN), eco-efficiency under managerial disposability (EM), eco-efficiency under natural and managerial disposability (ENM) and ENM with desirable congestion (ENM (DC)). Based on the EN, both the energy conservation and emission reduction potentials were calculated. Additionally, the investment strategy was confirmed by regional types of damages to return (DTR). In the second-stage study, the factors influencing eco-efficiency were measured using Tobit regression and truncated regression models. The results indicated that the efficiency scores of EN, EM, ENM and ENM (DC) were considerably different. Investment was effective in improving the energy-environmental performance for twenty-one regions during the whole study period. Henan had the highest energy conservation and emission reduction potentials. The results obtained from the regression models were similar, which displayed that the population density and energy price were responsible for the increase in eco-efficiency while economic development level and industrial structure affected eco-efficiency negatively. Based on these results, policy recommendations for the non-ferrous metals industry to improve their performance in a low-carbon economy are suggested.

Energy conservation, emission reduction and win–win development of China’s industry: 2013–2050 – MDI analysis framework based on directional distance function

ABSTRACTAs the biggest developing country, China faces the heavy pressure of energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER). China’s industry takes first place in energy consumption and pollution emission among the industrial entities. How to get rid of China’s industrial stagnant growth under the restriction of resources and environment, and find out the optimal path between ECER and industrial development is the main task of this study. The article adopts the historical data of China’s industry from 2003 to 2012, establishes a managerial disposability intensity analysis framework based on the directional distance function, and designs four energy conservation scenarios and nine CO2 emission paths for a total of 36 kinds of alternative policy combinations to predict the win–win development and find the optimal path of industrial ECER from 2013 to 2050. Research shows that on the whole, industry will fail to achieve a win–win development in the future, while 6% growth rate of industrial output, 2.8% growth rate of energy consumption, and the peak of CO2 in 2040 is the most optimum path. At the same time, the feedbacks of ECER constraints on specific industrial sectors are different, there are 16 industrial sectors that can achieve win–win development in the future.

Undesirable congestion under natural disposability and desirable congestion under managerial disposability in U.S. electric power industry measured by DEA environmental assessment

This study discusses a new use of DEA environmental assessment to measure a possible occurrence of desirable congestion, or eco-technology innovation, in electric power plants. The phenomenon is compared with an occurrence of undesirable congestion in this study. The identification of undesirable congestion is important to avoid a cost increase and a shortage of generation. However, the identification of desirable congestion is much more important than that of undesirable congestion from the perspective of environmental assessment. This study looks for a sustainable economic growth by identifying eco-technology innovation that can be effectively used to reduce the amount of air pollution so that electric power companies satisfy a governmental standard on environmental protection. The proposed approach is applied to evaluate the performance of coal-fired power plants in the United States. This study finds two policy implications. First, power plants operated by bituminous coal (i.e., black coal) outperform those with sub-bituminous coal (i.e., brawn coal). The result implies that power plants with sub-bituminous coal should be replaced by bituminous coal. Second, the undesirable congestion, due to a line limit between points of power generation and consumption, may occur on most of coal-fired power plants. In contrast, desirable congestion, due to eco-technology innovation, may occur on a limited number of power plants. Thus, the identification of desirable congestion assists us in selecting which technology, or the type of power plant, should be invested to facilitate eco-technology innovation and its related engineering management for a future sustainable economic growth.