an empirical analysis of state and private sector provision of water services in africa under pressure from donor agencies and international financial institutions such as the world bank some developing countries have experimented with the privatization of water services this article reviews the econometric evidence on the effects of water privatization in developing economies and presents new results using statistical data envelopment analysis and stochastic cost frontier techniques and data from africa the analysis fails to show evidence of better performance by private utilities than by state owned utilities among the reasons why water privatization could prove problematic in lower income economies are the technology of water provision and the nature of the product transaction costs and regulatory weaknesses

how different is the efficiency of public and private water companies in asia several studies have compared the efficiency of publicly and privately owned water utilities and reached conflicting conclusions on the impact of ownership on efficiency this article provides further evidence by estimating a stochastic cost frontier for a sample of asian and pacific regional water companies the results show that efficiency is not significantly different in private companies than in public ones

infrastructure and regional economic growth the spanish case cutanda a and paricio j 1994 infrastructure and regional economic growth the spanish case reg studies 28 69 77 this paper considers the measurement of infrastructure capital in the spanish regions and examines the regional disparities found the relationship between income and infrastructure is studied in order to determine the impact of public capital in accounting for regional disparities in incomes the empirical evidence shows that infrastructure has a significant positive effect on the income disparities at regional level cutanda a et paricio j 1994 l equipement et la croissance economique regionale reg studies 28 69 77 cet article considere la mesure du capital affecte a l equipement aux regions en espagne et en examine les ecarts regionaux on etudie le rapport entre le revenu et l equipement afin de determiner l impact des depenses publiques comme facteur explicatif des ecarts de revenu regionaux les preuves empiriques laissent voir que l equipement a un effet positif non neglig

profit incentives and technical efficiency in the production of nursing home care in recent years nursing home care expenditures have approached one percent of gnp their growth is a major contributor to the escalating costs of health care in this article the authors analyze a sample of nursing homes from wisconsin to determine the characteristics of the efficiently operated nursing homes data envelopment analysis is used to calculate efficiency scores for the various nursing homes in the sample the authors then use regression analysis to investigate the determinants of efficiency holding constant the characteristics of the output they find that for profit firms have significantly higher efficiency scores copyright 1989 by mit press

the impact of subsidies on x efficiency in ldc industry theory and an empirical test the x inefficiency costs of protection and industrial concentration have been topics of considerable interest in the literature on economic development balassa 1975 and bergsman 1974 for example have argued that protection by increasing x inefficiency generates a major welfare cost which is not captured by traditional costs of protection calculations and white 1976 has examined the relationship between inappropriate factor intensities which he associates with xinefficiency and industrial concentration the common theme which emerges from each of these studies is that public policy can have a major impact on economic performance not only by influencing factor proportions but also by influencing the intensity with which a non measurable input x efficiency is employed despite the intuitive appeal of the x efficiency concept there have been very few empirical tests of this hypothesis this partly reflects the imprecise nature of the basic concept but also the lack of adequate micro economic data x efficiency clearly relates to efficiency within firms so that the most appropriate tests would rely on data on firm level efficiency in this paper we propose a direct test of the x efficiency hypothesis using firm level data we build on previous work by corden 1970 1974 and martin 1978 who showed how to model x efficiency effects using the concept of managerial leisure we extend these simple models of managerial behavior emphasizing the role of the external managerial labor market the model is then used to explore the relationship between changes in public policy managerial effort and x inefficiency certain predictions of the model are tested using cross section data from a survey of firms in two subsidized industries in ghana efficiency indices are computed on the basis of a translog frontier production function variations in relative efficiency are then correlated with several explanatory variables including the presence or absence of subsidy payments to the firm subsidized firms in both industries are found to exhibit higher relative levels of x inefficiency

some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis in management contexts mathematical programming is usually used to evaluate a collection of possible alternative courses of action en route to selecting one which is best in this capacity mathematical programming serves as a planning aid to management data envelopment analysis reverses this role and employs mathematical programming to obtain ex post facto evaluations of the relative efficiency of management accomplishments however they may have been planned or executed mathematical programming is thereby extended for use as a tool for control and evaluation of past accomplishments as well as a tool to aid in planning future activities the ccr ratio form introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes as part of their data envelopment analysis approach comprehends both technical and scale inefficiencies via the optimal value of the ratio form as obtained directly from the data without requiring a priori specification of weights and or explicit delineation of assumed functional forms of relations between inputs and outputs a separation into technical and scale efficiencies is accomplished by the methods developed in this paper without altering the latter conditions for use of dea directly on observational data technical inefficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and or usage of excessive amounts of inputs methods for identifying and correcting the magnitudes of these inefficiencies as supplied in prior work are illustrated in the present paper a new separate variable is introduced which makes it possible to determine whether operations were conducted in regions of increasing constant or decreasing returns to scale in multiple input and multiple output situations the results are discussed and related not only to classical single output economics but also to more modern versions of economics which are identified with contestable market theories

environmental management accounting in lithuania exploratory study of current practices opportunities and strategic intents abstract there is a growing consensus among the lithuanian policy makers practitioners and industrialists that environmental policy must move from a reactive stance to a more proactive sustainable development approach as a result many companies are increasingly interested in the application of economic incentives at least as supplements or reinforcements of environmental standards the institute of environmental engineering eu centre of excellence in sustainable industrial development apini sid in 1992 2003 has been involved in introduction and implementation of preventive environmental strategy in industry in lithuania and in other countries in lithuania these efforts resulted in the implementation of more than 200 cleaner production innovations in more than 150 lithuanian companies it should be stressed that effective plant maintenance is becoming a higher priority to plant managers it is important to ensure cost savings at all levels that include maximizing productivity and implementing energy saving approaches effective and efficient maintenance are not just desirable but fundamental to profitable business operations therefore central to the environmental view of sustainable development is the concept that economic and social systems are sub systems of the global environment apini s experience shows that decision makers at the company level often fail to recognize the economic values of natural resources as assets as well as the business and financial value of good environmental performance therefore there is a need to upgrade the business decision making process by including information on material flows and related costs to account for efforts of sustainable development staniskis jk stasiskiene z promotion of cleaner production investments international experience journal of cleaner production 2002 11 6 619 28 issn 0959 6526 elsevier science decisions are increasingly affected by environmental costs application of environmental management accounting ema which integrates two of the main principles of sustainable development environment and economics can help to significantly improve corporate decision making ema is becoming increasingly important not only for environmental management decisions and development of environmental management systems ems but also for all types of routine management activities such as product and process design cost allocation and control capital budgeting purchasing product pricing and performance evaluation companies which use ema as a part of integrated management system are provided with accurate and comprehensive information for the measurement and reporting of environmental performance this paper investigates the current state of ema practices in lithuanian smes that have already been or are being implementing ems and which have implemented cp innovations in this case ema is analysed as an innovative assessment and evaluation method of ems and cp innovation s environmental impacts and economic benefits it should be stressed that there are obvious differences in case studies from different industries however review of the results shows that there are many similarities in what improvements can be suggested for environmentally concerned companies both in terms of environmentally sound operation and for reporting of environmental management accounting information

the structure of technical efficiency it is common practice to decompose measures of efficiency into component measures of technical and allocative efficiency in this paper we show how and why to decompose a general measure of technical efficiency into component measures of purely technical efficiency congestion and scale efficiency and we investigate the properties of each measure we do so for a multiple output technology which satisfies a weak axiom system that does not include either constant returns to scale or strong input disposability

mfca extension from a circular economy perspective model modifications and case study abstract as an innovative method of environment management accounting ema a model of material flow cost accounting mfca is widely used in the field of cost calculation in the manufacturing process industry and it has obtained a level of achievement in recent years based on the existing literature in the field this report argues that the application of the current mfca model in the process industry has defects such as content restrictions a single accounting index simple methodology and one sided conclusions among others this paper combines the current mfca model with the 3r principle of a circular economy ce and the industry characteristics of high consumption and pollution the research focuses on the iron and steel industry as a representative of a process manufacturing industry and forms a modified mfca model for an iron and steel enterprise according to the perspective of ce the modifications we make to the model occur in the fields of model content the accounting index the methodology of application and the extension of functionality finally through a specific case study this report verifies the comprehensive utility of the proposed modified model in general the modified mfca may to a certain extent be considered innovative in its approach to information and data connections extension of methods and procedures modes of disclosing information construction of evaluation analysis and management of circular decision making each of these elements is conducive to realizing a triple win situation for the conservation of resources energy providing an economic value add reducing the environmental load and enhancing the sustainable development of a resource constrained process industry

utilities privatization and the poor lessons and evidence from latin america abstract the perception that privatization hurts the poor is growing and creating a backlash against the private provision of basic infrastructure services at the same time governments are finding themselves fiscally strapped searching for ways to finance the large investments needed to expand services to the poor in latin america a laboratory for privatization evidence exists which sheds light on the privatization experience this paper analyzes the channels through which the poor might either lose or gain from privatization examines the evidence accumulated on what has actually happened and then discusses the policy options available to decision makers who want to increase efficiency while at the same time dealing with the infrastructure needs of the poor that have been identified as being important for their welfare in that context the issue of whether welfare considerations should form part of the regulatory approach to privatized services is examined the paper s major aims are to shed light on the issue of who can and does benefit from privatization of utilities and to guide policy makers in the choices

policy watch government analysis of the benefits and costs of regulation recently congress has shown a greater interest in assessing the economic impact of regulation this interest was driven in part by estimates that federal regulation costs several hundred billion dollars annually in 1996 congress required the director of the office of management and budget to provide estimates of the total annual benefits and costs of individual regulations this essay reviews the increasing use of economic analysis in regulatory decisionmaking critically assesses the first 0mb report and considers how the use of economic analysis can help inform regulatory decisionmaking it argues that policymakers need to address a growing body of evidence that casts doubt on the effectiveness and efficiency of much regulation

declining city productivity and the growth of rural regions a test of alternative explanations prior to the 1970s the u s witnessed a net flow of migrants from its nonmetropolitan to its metropolitan region since then however a dramatic reversal of this long standing tendency for people to concentrate in metropolitan places has been observed nonmetropolitan places have gained migrants largely as the result of increased outmigration from metropolitan areas an open question has been to what extent the employment profile between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan places parallels that of population this paper introduces a data series compiled from county business patterns that is used to analyze the employment trends for the first time the analysis reveals that not only is total employment growing fastest in nonmetropolitan counties but it also appears that the turnaround in employment growth preceded the reversal in the rate of population increase manufacturing which had faster nonmetropolitan growth rates even during the 195os appears to have led in the development of nonmetropolitan counties this shift of manufacturing has attracted other sectors as well as people to nonmetropolitan places part of the recent growth of nonmetropolitan counties represented nothing more than a continuation of suburbanization or spillover of people and jobs which permitted one more outward bound into adjacent nonmetropolitan counties but there is more to nonmetropolitan development than simply metropolitan spillover nonmetropolitan counties far removed from metropolitan ones are also growing faster than metropolitan counties it is shown that this rural renaissance is part of a general deconcentration

an application of dea for comparative analysis and ranking of regions in serbia with regards to social economic development abstract in this paper we use data envelopment analysis dea to estimate how well regions in serbia utilize their resources based on data for four inputs and four outputs we applied an output oriented ccr dea model and it appears that 17 out of 30 regions are efficient for each inefficient unit dea identifies the sources and level of inefficiency for each input and output an output oriented set of targets is determined for 13 inefficient regions in addition the possibilities of combining dea and linear discriminant analysis lda in evaluating performance are explored the efficient regions are ranked using a cross efficiency matrix and an output oriented version of andersen petersen s dea model and the results are analyzed and compared

towards a national circular economy indicator system in china an evaluation and critical analysis abstract it is widely acknowledged that china s economic miracle has been achieved at the expense of its natural capital and environment in order to deal with this problem the circular economy ce has been chosen as a national policy for sustainable development national laws and regulations have been enacted to facilitate the implementation of ce and national ce demonstration projects have been initiated such that national benchmarking activities could be completed china is the first country to release nationally focused ce indicators so that objective and credible information on the status of ce implementation can be recognized these ce indicators are valuable metrics for policy and decision makers and can help achieve ce goals and outcomes this unique indicator system has not been communicated to international communities this paper aims to more broadly introduce this unique national ce indicator system china s ce efforts are first detailed with various provisions of the national indicator system a critical analysis of such an indicator system is presented we show that certain benefits can be gained but substantive revision is also needed due to the lack of a comprehensive set of sustainability indicators which should include social business indicators urban industrial symbiosis absolute material energy reduction and prevention oriented indicators concerns related to barriers on implementation are also presented in this paper the knowledge gained from chinese efforts on ce indicators are valuable to both developed and developing nations seeking to implement sustainable development measures within their regulatory policies

distinguished lecture on economics in government the private uses of public interests incentives and institutions as a long time student of the public sector i welcomed the opportunity to come to washington as a member of the council of economic advisers and later to become the chairman of the council partly because it gave me an opportunity to study at first hand this immensely important part of our economy and society and to test my ideas against the reality of government in action to be sure i came also as an activist if not with a fully articulated agenda at least with a view about what it was that government should and should not be doing my reference point was the fundamental theorems of welfare economics which as some describe them proved that the market left to itself would produce efficient allocations many saw in these theorems the vindication of adam smith s faith in the invisible hand leading the self interested decisions of each person to maximize the well being of the nation as a whole today many of us look at the fundamental theorem not as a description of the world but as an explication of the conditions under which a market equilibrium will be pareto efficient these conditions are quite strong the importance of some of the more explicit assumptions like the lack of externalities and the completeness of markets has long been known in the last two decades we have explored much more seriously the consequences of the informational assumptions implicit in the belief that markets are efficient in particular it has been shown that in the presence of imperfect information or incomplete markets the economy will not be pareto efficient in other words there joseph stiglitz is senior vice president and chief economist world bank washington d c stiglitz was a member of the council of economic advisers from 1993 95 and chairman

the interpretation and extension of material flow cost accounting mfca in the context of environmental material flow analysis abstract material flow cost accounting mfca enables companies to identify the added value they lose as a result of material losses mfca can also be understood as a special allocation method for distributing the costs in a production system to both the products and the material losses a mathematical algorithm for this purpose that can be deployed flexibly is presented it is based on the physical quantity structure of the energy and material flows in a production system these physical quantities can then be taken to represent monetary values or environmental impacts from an economic standpoint the outcome is the known mfca from the environmental standpoint it is possible to calculate what environmental impacts could be saved by reducing the material losses the process can also be used to analyze internal recycling flows and their potential for economic and ecological improvement in particular the algorithm is suitable for creating software solutions that can perform transparent cost accounting as well as environmental accounting with consideration given to the mfca approach for all kinds of complex production systems and supply chains this supplies valuable information that can help companies in deciding what material flow related measures are suitable for saving costs and reducing environmental impacts

technical scale and allocative efficiencies in u s banking an empirical investigation a nonparametric frontier approach is used to calculate the overall technical pure technical allocative and scale efficiencies for a sample of 322 independent banks the sample was drawn from the federal deposit insurance corporation tapes on the reports of condition and reports of income call reports for the year 1986 the results indicated a low level of overall efficiency the main source of inefficiency was technical in nature rather than allocative separate efficiency frontiers were constructed to test the effect of branching however the distributions of efficiency measures for branching and non branching banks were not found to be different

assessing the comparative spatial disadvantage csd of regions in the european union using non radial data envelopment analysis methods abstract in this paper we propose non radial data envelopment analysis models for assessing the comparative spatial disadvantage csd of the level ii regions of the european union eu csd is considered as a relatively new element of spatial efficiency which seeks to enhance the spectrum of the current methods used for assessing spatial inequality and dispersion the paper also proposes a goal programming formulation for assessing production function coefficients of the social cohesion among the regions of the eu assuming elimination of the levels of comparative disadvantage

is public expenditure productive abstract this paper considers the relationship between aggregate productivity and stock and flow government spending variables the empirical results indicate that i the nonmilitary public capital stock is dramatically more important in determining productivity than is either the flow of nonmilitary or military spending ii military capital bears little relation to productivity and iii a core infrastructure of streets highways airports mass transit sewers water systems etc has most explanatory power for productivity the paper also suggests an important role for the net public capital stock in the productivity slowdown of the last fifteen years

material flow cost accounting looking back and ahead abstract material flow cost accounting mfca combines physical flows and monetary units and is located between energy and material efficiency analyses environmental management and managerial accounting procedures since the development of iso 14051 2011 research and application in industry increased but still some theoretical methodological and practical gaps exist this special volume addresses some of the existing deficits and shows the fertile contribution of mfca on resource efficiency as can been seen by the articles and case studies in this special volume mfca still is continuously spreading into further countries and the methodology is extended refined and elaborated and increasingly applied in combination with various other tools and concepts the main challenges are still the continuous implementation of the method in industry and the public dissemination of the results

regional concentration and efficiency in mexican manufacturing abstract this paper explores the link between industrial location concentration and economic efficiency in mexican manufacturing using a linear programming approach the authors calculate indices of overall technical allocative and scale efficiency for mexican manufacturing industries by state to test whether in 1985 those regions with high levels of industrial concentration were suffering from the costs of congestion the evidence suggests that at least at the aggregate level there continued to be a positive relationship between industry concentration and efficiency in production there is also evidence that overall efficiency was related to scale efficiency although highly industrialized regions on the production frontier often operated at inefficient scales in particular the most concentrated regions the federal district the state of mexico jalisco and nuevo leon consistently display decreasing returns to scale indicating that the process of industrial concentration may be leading to diseconomies of scale finally an econometric analysis suggests that scale urbanization and agglomeration economies are positively related to overall and technical efficiency at the regional level while foreign ownership is negatively related agglomeration economies at the industry level were not significant the paper also makes a methodological contribution it is the first application of a distance function production methodology to measuring regional efficiency in a developing country it demonstrates how to conduct distance function efficiency analysis using the newly developed gams mathematical programming environment these tools should be of considerable interest to applied microeconomists

a critical assessment of transaction cost theory and governance of public services with special reference to water and sanitation this is a pre copyedited author produced version of an article accepted for publication in cambridge journal of economics following peer review the version of record hulya dagdeviren and simon a robertson a critical assessment of transaction cost theory and governance of public services with special reference to water and sanitation cambridge journal of economics vol 40 6 1707 1724 january 2016 is available online at https doi org 10 1093 cje bev079

the regional impact of infrastructure investment in mexico looney r and frederiksen p 1981 the regional impact of infrastructure investment in mexico reg studies 15 285 296 using multiple regression analysis production functions are estimated for mexico to examine whether infrastructure s impact on gdp differs depending on the type of investment economic or social overhead capital or the type of recipient region intermediate or lagging this possibility has been suggested by hansen the states were grouped by means of cluster analysis the results tend to confirm the hansen thesis economic overhead capital has had its greatest impact on gdp in intermediate regions while social overhead capital has had its greatest impact in lagging regions a test for causality indicates that investment precedes income growth several policy recommendations are offered on the basis of these results

domestic regulation and the wto the case of water services in developing countries n recent years the interface between domestic regulation and trade liberalisa tion in services has received increasing attention in public policy debate inboth developed and developing countries trade in services to a much greaterextent than trade in goods is affected by a variety of domestic regulations whichmay in uence the effects of trade and investment liberalisation mattoo andsauve 2002 and 2003 many services particularly those provided by utilities ornetwork industries are characterised by various forms of market imperfection and regulation is needed in order to ensure a certain level of quality of service toprotect consumers or to protect the environment understandably governmentshave been concerned to retain national autonomy in regulation policy and havebeen wary of agreeing to commit themselves to common international rules inthis area as part of the uruguay round the general agreement on trade in services gats entered into force on 1 january 1995 with a set of binding rules anddisciplines to promote liberalisation of services trade and investment ows thewto ministerial declaration at doha in november 2001 agreed to negotiationson the reduction or elimination of tariff and non tariff barriers for environmentalgoods and services as part of the negotiations on trade in services within thegats framework wto 2001

introduction of material flow cost accounting mfca to the supply chain a questionnaire study on the challenges of constructing a low carbon supply chain to promote resource efficiency the purpose of the present article is to identify the requirements and challenges of promoting a low carbon supply chain caused by the introduction of material flow cost accounting mfca to this end the role of an mfca leader company within the low carbon supply chain was examined next the results of a questionnaire study that was carried out in 2012 were shown in the second part of the paper the questionnaire was sent to the listed industrial enterprises 1 561 enterprises in japan and the response rate was 22 8 356 questionnaires received the status quo of information sharing between the buyers and suppliers along the supply chain preconditions and requirements for introducing mfca was considered the study showed that setting environmental indicators as performance evaluation criteria of a company s purchasing department as well as explaining the performance of mfca to the purchasing department on the one hand and promoting inter organizational information sharing between buyers and suppliers on the other are important steps in order to effectively introduce mfca in the supply chain

expanding material flow cost accounting framework review and potentials abstract existing research argues that impressive environmental and economic benefits can be and have been achieved with material flow cost accounting mfca this paper examines the body of literature on mfca and identifies a limited application of mfca in comparison to its potential application examining the scope of mfca shows that the methodological proposals and applications are largely focused on production related decisions so far the growing but still limited body of research on mfca has not been linked with the conceptual developments in environmental management accounting ema by conducting a literature review based on the ema framework additional decision situations and decision makers are identified and the potential benefits of expanding mfca are discussed this paper provides a research agenda both for developing mfca tools and subsequently for spreading them to new areas where they can contribute to the sustainable development of organizations the economy and society practitioners could benefit from this paper by considering additional areas of applications for mfca in the specific settings of their company

institutions and commitment the thrust of this paper is that to understand the roles institutions play in society a deep analysis of opportunism and its implications is necessary for that purpose a transactions costs cum positive political theory approach is developed with a focus on the role of institutions and their implications for regulatory commitment a major issue is restraining political opportunism countries that have succeeded in developing a healthy private sector are those that have developed institutions that restrain governmental decision making but such restraining is itself a political choice countries with electoral and legislative systems that bring about decentralized government have stronger chances of developing equilibria where government discretion is restrained copyright 1996 by oxford university press