Search results

Waste management is one of the vital objectives for the EU since it has a substantial effect on the environment. European Commission expects annual waste creation on Earth to increase by 70% by 2050. European Commission also estimates that efficient waste management might boost the EU economy's gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.5% by 2030. Hence, it is essential to conduct research including both efficiency and influencing factors analysis for effective waste management. First, we employ both slack-based measure (SBM) and super-SBM data envelopment analysis approaches to investigate the waste management efficiency of the EU region and distinguish between efficient countries. The countries with small areas such as Luxembourg and Ireland have demonstrated super efficiency. Second, we maintain our empirical research with ordinary least square analysis to explore the determinants of waste management. We also conclude that population density, GDP per capita, and tourism rise the amount of waste generated in the EU region.

China's increasing income inequality might cause a series of problems, such as the slowdown of economic growth, social and economic tension, the decline of the ecological environment quality and the threat to citizens' health. Consequently, income inequality will inevitably affect the ecological well-being performance (EWP) level of China's provinces through the above aspects. Analyzing the impact of income inequality on EWP and its spatial spillover effects are conducive to improving the level of EWP in China. Therefore, the research purpose of this paper is to use China's provincial data from 2001 to 2017 to analyze the impact of income inequality on EWP and the spatial spillover effect based on the evaluation of the EWP value of each province.

At first, this study utilizes the super efficiency slacks-based measure model (Super-SBM model) to calculate the EWP values of 30 provinces in China, which can evaluate and rank the effective decision units in the SBM model and make up for the defect that the effective decision units cannot be distinguished. Then this study applies the spatial Durbin model and Tobit regression model (SDM-Tobit model) to explore the impact of income inequality and other influencing factors on EWP and the spatial spillover effects in adjacent areas.

Firstly, the average EWP in China fluctuated slightly and showed a downward trend from 2001 to 2017. In addition, the EWP values of the provinces in the western region are usually weaker than those in the eastern and central regions. Moreover, income inequality is negatively correlated with EWP, and the EWP has a spatial spillover effect, which means the EWP level in a region is affected by EWP values in the adjacent regions. Furthermore, the industrial structure and urbanization level are both negatively related to EWP, while technology level, investment openness, trade openness and education level are positively related to EWP.

Compared with the existing research, the possible contribution of this research is that it takes income inequality as one of the important influencing factors of EWP and adopts the SDM-Tobit model to analyze the impact mechanism of income inequality on EWP from the perspective of time and space, providing new ideas for improving the EWP of various provinces in China.

The purpose of this study is to propose a comprehensive benchmarking approach to help subsidiaries of a company to implement continuous improvement (CI).

The proposed approach classifies subsidiaries of a company into the three stages of CI. After that, the proposed approach employs data envelopment analysis (DEA)-super slacks-based measure (SBM) model and Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) to evaluate the operational efficiency of the subsidiaries and selects benchmarking targets and sets benchmarking goals based on the operational efficiency for benchmarking of input and output criteria. Then, the proposed approach suggests a four-step benchmarking process for benchmarking of detailed efficiency. Finally, the proposed approach makes the subsidiaries achieve CI by implementing the input and output benchmarking and the efficiency benchmarking.

The results show that the proposed approach can help subsidiaries of a company to implement a staged benchmarking which considers input and output criteria and Malmquist productivity and efficiency comprehensively.

Generally, benchmarking is implemented in many aspects. However, due to the restriction of a company’s resource level, a practical and staged benchmarking is preferred. This study proposes a comprehensive approach to benchmark systematically and gradually, and provides a more reasonable benchmarking process for implementing CI.

This paper aims to research the relationship between income gap (IG) and green economic growth based on the perspective of economic inequality.

Based on the panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper uses the super slack based model (Super-SBM) to measure the efficiency of regional green economic growth, and constructs a regression model of the IG and regional green economic growth.

Firstly, the IG has an inhibitory effect on the growth of regional green economy (GE). Secondly, the relationship between the IG and regional green economic growth will be affected by the threshold value of income level. Thirdly, environmental regulation and government competition will increase the inhibitory effect of the IG.

According to the characteristics of China's regional economy, the researchers construct an empirical model of the IG and green economic growth to study their relationship, the threshold effect of income level and the moderating effect of environmental regulation and local government competition. The research content, methods and conclusions of this paper provide new evidence for the sustainable growth of China's regional GE.

We adopt a super slack-based measurement (SBM) data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to estimate the efficiency of five biggest freight rail operators in Russia, which are included in the top 30 freight rail operators in terms of two dimensions – financial and operational efficiency during 2013–2017. The result shows that the private companies characterized by high financial and operational efficiency, while the Rossiiskye Zheleznye Dorogi (RZD) subsidiaries characterized by sufficiently low financial and operational efficiency scores. And the result also presents that operational efficiency score of operators handling universal rolling stock is higher than financial efficiency scores. In contrast, financial efficiency scores of operators handling special rolling stock is higher than operational efficiency scores. rail freight operators in addition to a special rolling stock park should have a universal rolling stock park for higher profitability. State-owned companies and its subsidiary operate inefficiently in the midst of a market economy in Russia. Rail freight operators for a higher level of financial efficiency should be transferred to the private sector.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the comparative efficiency of 18 Korean commercial banks under the presence of negative observations and examine performance differences among them by grouping them according to their market conditions.

The authors employ two data envelopment analysis (DEA) models such as a Banker, Charnes, and Cooper (BCC) model and a modified slacks-based measure of efficiency (MSBM) model, which can handle negative data. The BCC model is proven to be translation invariant for inputs or outputs depending on output or input orientation. Meanwhile, the MSBM model is unit invariant in addition to translation invariant. The authors compare results from both models and choose one for interpreting results.

Most Korean banks recovered from the worst performance in 2011 and showed similar performance in recent years. Among three groups such as national banks, regional banks, and special banks, the most special banks demonstrated superb performance across models and years. Especially, the performance difference between the special banks and the regional banks was statistically significant. The authors concluded that the high performance of the special banks was due to their nationwide market access and ownership type.

This study demonstrates how to analyze and measure the efficiency of entities when variables contain negative observations using a data set for Korean banks. The authors have tried two major DEA models that are able to handle negative data and proposed a practical direction for future studies.

Although there are research papers for measuring the performance of banks in Korea, all of the papers in the topic have studied efficiency or productivity using positive data sets. However, variables such as net incomes and growth rates frequently include negative observations in bank data sets. This is the first paper to investigate the efficiency of bank operations in the presence of negative data in Korea.

The purpose of this research is to explain the financing dilemma of China's strategic emerging industries and improve their financing efficiency, seize the commanding heights of economic science and technology to provide theoretical support.

This paper selects the companies listed under strategic emerging industry during the period of 2010–2017 as the research object and used the data envelopment analysis method (DEA) to evaluate the financing efficiency of China's strategic emerging industries and selects the tobit analysis method to find out the factors affecting its financing efficiency.

The results show that the average financing efficiency of listed companies in strategic emerging industries between 2010 and 2017 is 0.7792, and the level of financing efficiency of strategic emerging industries is still at a low level. Among them, the bio-pharmaceutical industry and the energy-saving and environmental protection industry have the highest comprehensive level, and the high-end equipment manufacturing industry and the new energy industry have the lowest level of financing efficiency. Among the factors affecting the financing efficiency of strategic emerging industries, the asset-liability ratio, financial expenses and cash ratio and financing efficiency are negatively correlated, and the net asset income is positively correlated with the growth rate of the main business income.

This paper measures the financing efficiency of China's strategic emerging industries, then explores the influencing factors of the financing efficiency of strategic emerging industries and tries to provide important reference values for the improvement of the financing efficiency of China's strategic emerging industries at a practical level.

This paper uses various Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA) approaches to study the efficiency of major airlines in Asia-Pacific region. To evaluate the operation efficiency of fourteen major airlines in Asia-Pacific region from 2003-2011, Available Seat Kilometers(ASK), Available Ton Kilometers(ATK), the number of employees are used as input factors, Revenue Passenger Kilometers(RPK), Revenue Ton Kilometers(RTK), the amount of Sales are used as output factors.

The non-radial SBM-DEA (Slacks-based Measure of Efficiency) model was able to provide a more comprehensive efficiency of combining economic performance and regional difference. And it was also able to capture slack values in input excess and output shortage.

The results demonstrate that Korea and Japan airlines are operated efficiently and could be regarded as the benchmarking airlines. On the other hand, most of the China and ASEAN airlines are deemed to be inefficient. Also analyzing slacks may be more suitable way for the evaluation or suggestion of an improvement scheme for the inefficient airlines. The excess of labor is the major cause of the airlines’ inefficiency.