Treatment Of Undesirable Outputs Research Articles

Treating undesirable outputs in DEA: A critical review

The treatment of undesirable outputs in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has received great research attention recently. As such and as are presented in this work, there are four possible options to deal with those: 1. ignoring them from the production function, 2. treating them as regular inputs, 3. treating them as normal outputs and 4. performing necessary transformations to take them into account. Also new model propositions for their treatment are being presented. Each method brings with it, benefits and drawbacks which each researcher should take into account at every stage of their research and assesses which method is more appropriate to be used.

Energy efficiency in the European Union: What can be learned from the joint application of directional distance functions and slacks-based measures?

Over the last few years concerns have increased about the energy mix in many countries. These concerns have been of greater magnitude for countries with a common energy regulation such as European Union (EU) member states. An important aspect to take into account when choosing a given energy mix is the efficiency involved in its generation. In this context, the present study analyzes the efficiency with which electricity and derived heat was produced in 25 EU member states over the last decade. This analysis considers not only the inputs and outputs involved but, more importantly, which undesirable by-products were generated during the production process, a relevant issue for EU climate policy. To this end, two nonparametric frontier models are applied: first, a Directional Distance Function (DDF), based on Briec’s (1997) [16] proposal and, second, a modified version of Tone’s (2001) [51] Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model, both of which are especially appropriate in this particular context due to their treatment of undesirable outputs. Results are partly innovative since, with few exceptions, applications on this issue are relatively scarce. From a policy implications’ point of view, our achievements are also interesting because they reveal remarkable efficiency differences among EU countries: those countries from the latest EU enlargements account for the lowest efficiencies, with large opportunities for improvement in CO2 abatement and primary energy saving. Results also show stable efficiencies along the evaluated period and, therefore, highlighting the need to further intensify the initiatives designed to harmonize environmental policies and identifying drivers for efficiency improvement turn out to be still key objectives.

Waste-to-energy technologies: Impact on environment

This paper provides an overview of thermal treatment methods for waste-to-energy (WTE) processes technologies in terms of their performance and environmental impact. It presents the possibilities of waste treatments and related legislation by the European Communities. In the Czech Republic there are 19 industrial waste incinerators in wide range of process capacities from 15 kt/y to 0.3 kt/y, and three municipal waste incinerators with nominal capacity 300, 250 and 9 kt/y. The pathways of energy production and the treatment of undesirable outputs are considered. There are analysed issues related to the WTE, technologies for thermal treatment of waste, heat recovery systems, flue gas issues and measures for flue gas cleaning. Up-to-date equipment used in WTE technologies is presented. Also different WTE performance techniques are included to provide a basis for comparison of different technologies. Available software for simulation the WTE processes are overviewed as well. The paper has been concluded with some promising future trends and approaches.

A Kuznets Curve in Environmental Efficiency: An Application on OECD Countries

The role of the environment is an important issue in policy making andthe accurate assessment of the environmental conditions is vital. Inthis paper, using nonparametric techniques, an environmental efficiencyindex is developed for each of the OECD countries. These indexes allowone both to do cross section comparisons on the state of each country'sproduction process in its treatment of undesirable outputs and also totrace each country's modification of their production processesovertime. Furthermore in this study we investigate the factorsunderlying societies' environmental concerns that eventually lead tochanges in the environmental efficiency. The results provide furtherempirical evidence for the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis.