a nonparametric cost approach to scale efficiency starting with farrell fieldhouse 1962 a host of notiparametric models have been developed for calculation of scale efficiency a common property of these models is that they are specified in terms of input output data duality theory has taught us that technological characteristics may be analyzed from either the primal or the dual cost side the purpose of this paper is to introduce a nonparametric dual method of calculating scale efficiency

china s carbon emissions trading overview challenges and future because china has emerged as the largest greenhouse gas ghg emitter in total annual emissions to accelerate the pace of ghg emission reduction in china is important to the success of global efforts in addressing climate change carbon trading is a market mechanism and key instrument in the mitigation of climate change this paper explores the policy process and development state to date of china s carbon trade market to understand the emergence and development of that market and to understand what barriers are hampering china s carbon trade market development to achieve this goal this paper introduces and analyzes china s status in the international market examines the factors driving carbon market launching by the chinese government and traces the development of mandatory carbon emission trading and voluntary emission trading it is argued that china s carbon trading market is confronted with challenges such as the absence of a functional carbon trading market inaccuracy of the quota allocation an imperfect trading mechanism and lagging legislation at the present stage shortcomings such as having no real time carbon price and dominated spot transactions differentiate china s trade market substantially from a functional system a quick market integration of china s carbon market appears remote it is suggested that specific measures be taken to promote the development of the chinese carbon trading market

a multi criteria decision analysis model for carbon emission quota allocation in china s east coastal areas efficiency and equity abstract the allocation of carbon emission quotas is recognized as a fundamental and critical step towards the establishment of an effective nationwide carbon emissions trading cet market in china this paper aims to examine the quota allocation pertaining to china s east coastal areas these regions are pioneers in reformation and the domestic heavy emitters in this paper a multi criteria decision analysis model is proposed this model is based on the principles of efficiency and equity in order to reflect the true efficiency of carbon emissions a weighted russell direction distance model is employed three criteria namely capacity responsibility and potential are used to evaluate the degrees of equity furthermore different situations are set to evaluate the related indicators the results indicate the following 1 industrial provinces have less carbon emission quota increments 2 the yangtze river delta economic zone has notably improved energy efficiency and future quota increments correspond with the zone s current carbon emissions 3 circum bohai sea economic zone will be a major buyer of carbon emission quotas while pan pearl river delta economic zone currently receives surplus quota 4 the overall allocation of quotas converts from uneven to even as a result of gdp growth these results provide a reference for collaborative regional reductions in carbon emissions and for the construction of a cet market

policy implications for achieving the carbon emission reduction target by 2030 in japan analysis based on a bilevel equilibrium model abstract in japan the national intended determined contributions indcs towards post 2020 ghg emission reductions indicates a reduction of 26 0 is expected by the fiscal year 2030 however regional emissions allowances have not been fully discussed based on japan s indcs target which considers the regional socio economic features given this this study points out a soft path for a fair and efficient quota allocation by proposing an integrated bilevel equilibrium model within a hierarchical structure consisting of the national government and 47 prefectural governments this proposed model can be changed into a single level solvable equilibrium model which can be solved by particle swarm optimization pso method the major findings show that hokkaido tokyo and osaka were allowed the largest emissions quotas while tottori saga and okinawa had the lowest emissions quotas and the equity is necessary to be considered along with improving the emissions efficiency when reallocating carbon emission quotas otherwise the initiative to reduce emissions will not take place in prefectures with higher efficiency performance based on the findings energy policy implications can be generated based on the above quantitative analysis to form a fair and efficient emission quota system at a sub national level

regional allocation of carbon emission quotas in china evidence from the shapley value method abstract it is an important task for china to allocate carbon emission quotas among regions so as to realize its carbon reduction targets and establish the national cap and trade carbon market meanwhile it is supposed to be cost effective to jointly reduce china s carbon emissions through some collaborative activities among regions then a natural question is how to allocate the quotas among regions in light of the collaboration for this purpose the shapley value method is adopted and the results show that first the regions with higher gdp higher carbon outflow and higher carbon reduction connection should be allocated more carbon quotas moreover when the collaboration is considered the optimal allocation of carbon quotas among regions will change significantly compared to the basic quotas by the entropy method and the central region is allocated the largest proportion of carbon quota among regions which indicates its largest radiation effect besides the collaboration between the central region and northern coast region and that between the central region and the eastern region should be paid close attention these results may provide insightful support for decision makers to promote collaborative carbon reduction and allocate carbon quotas in china

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

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

duration dependence in us expansions a re examination of the evidence abstract it is commonly accepted that economic expansions do not exhibit duration dependence that is the probability of an expansion terminating in the near future is thought to be independent of the length of the expansion when looking at the probability of entering a recession within a year or 2 years we find considerable evidence of economically significant duration dependence this pattern suggests that certain types of macroeconomic vulnerabilities may be accumulating as the expansion ages causing the arrival of a recession to become more likely

the impact of china s carbon allowance allocation rules on the product prices and emission reduction behaviors of ets covered enterprises abstract it is an important task for china to allocate carbon emission allowance to realize its carbon reduction target and establish carbon trading market china has designed several allocation rules within seven pilot regions what influence those rules may cause is closely related with the enthusiasm of emission trading scheme ets covered enterprises participation in carbon market and more importantly with the mechanism design and sustainable development of carbon market for this purpose the multi stage profit model is developed to analyze the ets covered enterprises product prices and emission reduction behaviors under different allocation rules the results show that first under the rules of grandfathering self declaration and auctioning when deciding the optimal product price and optimal carbon emission reduction those enterprises may focus on maximizing current stage profit however under the rule of benchmarking those enterprises may care more about the impact of current decisions on the profit in next stage second the optimal product price policy is positively correlated with the price of the same kind products consumers low carbon awareness and government subsidy finally along with the increase of carbon price consumers low carbon awareness and government subsidy and the decrease of carbon emission cap those enterprises tend to reduce carbon emissions

marginal values and returns to scale for nonparametric production frontiers we present a unifying linear programming approach to the calculation of various directional derivatives for a very large class of production frontiers of data envelopment analysis dea special cases of this include different marginal rates the scale elasticity and a spectrum of partial and mixed elasticity measures our development applies to any polyhedral production technology including to name a few the conventional variable and constant returns to scale dea technologies their extensions with weight restrictions technologies with weakly disposable undesirable outputs and network dea models furthermore our development provides a general method for characterization of returns to scale rts in any polyhedral technology the new approach effectively removes the need to develop bespoke models for the rts characterization and calculation of marginal rates and elasticity measures for each particular technology

a comparability analysis of global burden sharing ghg reduction scenarios the distribution of the mitigation burden across countries is a key issue regarding the post 2012 global climate policies this article explores the economic implications of alternative allocation rules an assessment made in the run up to the cop15 in copenhagen december 2009 we analyse the comparability of the allocations across countries based on four single indicators gdp per capita ghg emissions per gdp ghg emission trends in the recent past and population growth the multi sectoral computable general equilibrium model of the global economy gem e3 is used for that purpose further the article also compares a perfect carbon market without transaction costs with the case of a gradually developing carbon market i e a carbon market with gradually diminishing transaction costs

carbon leakage grandfathering as an incentive device to avert firm relocation emission allowances are sometimes distributed for free in an early phase of a cap and trade scheme to reduce adverse effects on the profitability of firms this paper investigates whether grandfathering can also be used to avert the relocation of firms to countries with lower carbon prices we show that under certain conditions relocation can be averted in the long run even if the grandfathering scheme is phased out over time and immediate relocation is profitable in its absence this requires that the permit price triggers sufficient investments into low carbon technologies or abatement capital that create a lock in effect which makes relocation unprofitable

carbon dioxide emissions allocation a review carbon dioxide co2 emissions allocation plays a fundamental role in determining reduction responsibility at economy level or emission permits at firm level past decades have seen the development and applications of various methods for co2 emissions allocation this paper provides a literature review of co2 emissions allocation with emphasis on the evolution of allocation methods used it begins with a summary of the most popular allocation principles and criteria that lay a foundation for the development of allocation methods we then classify the existing allocation methods into four groups namely indicator optimization game theoretic and hybrid approaches the main features and findings of past studies are identified and summarized while the fairness principle prevails in earlier studies the efficiency principle has been found to receive increasing attention recently we also present a comparison of the empirical results based on ten popular indicator methods to show how indicator choice affects the allocation results issues related to selecting appropriate methods in co2 emissions allocation are finally discussed further research may be carried out to strike a balance between fairness and efficiency so that the allocation results become more widely acceptable and economically feasible

cost based modelling of optimal emission quota allocation abstract given that a fixed national emission reduction target could be achieved by imposing emission quotas among multiple decision making units under administration a novel nonlinear programming approach is proposed in this paper to obtain an optimal emission quota allocation in a least cost way marginal emission abatement cost curves are simulated based on the environmental performance and marginal emission abatement costs measured in a set of parametric directional output distance functions with multi inputs and multi outputs further the proposed model is applied to empirically investigate the optimal carbon emission quota allocation for china s building construction industry among thirty three provinces in three different regions the results indicate that the relatively developed eastern region in china has higher marginal emission abatement cost and can be imposed with more emission quotas while the central and western regions can undertake more emission reduction approximately 74 million rmb can be saved by implementing the optimal emission allocation proposed in this paper as compared to a uniform emission quota allocation the findings are of great theoretical methodological and practical significance for policymakers and social science researchers in terms of climate change mitigation

efficient allocation of co2 emissions in china a zero sum gains data envelopment model abstract the appropriate allocation of co 2 emission quotas can build up a solid foundation for future emissions trading building co 2 emissions allocation mechanism has significant practical implications based on radial zero sum gains data envelopment zsg dea allocation model this paper uses a non radial zsg dea model to allocate co 2 emissions between different chinese provinces unlike previous studies treating co 2 as the input variable we treat co 2 as the undesirable output variable the modified model can better reflect macro production process while earlier relevant models treated co 2 emissions as inputs this paper contributes to the existing resource allocation method and allocates china s provincial co 2 emissions from the view of technical efficiency the results of our paper reveal that 1 between 2006 and 2010 the cumulative optimal amounts of co 2 emissions were higher than the actual amounts in 12 provinces and lower in other 18 provinces 2 several energy abundant provinces such as shanxi and inter mongolia need to take more responsibilities in co 2 emissions reduction 3 after the zsg dea allocation all provinces co 2 emissions are on zsg dea frontier which reflects the overall pareto optimality

integrated weighting approach to carbon emission quotas an application case of beijing tianjin hebei region abstract the coordinated development of beijing tianjin hebei region has been included in the chinese 12th five year plan as a national strategy accordingly the cooperation of energy saving and environmental protection is an important part at the present stage establishing carbon emission trading market in china is regarded as an effective measure to reduce and control carbon dioxide emission meanwhile it is an important task for government to allocate carbon emission quotas among regions in order to explore the cross provincial carbon trading market mode of china this paper aims to construct a comprehensive index and use the integrated weighting approach to simulate the carbon quota allocation of beijing tianjin hebei region the results show that firstly the indicator of responsibility which is about 0 56 is given relatively more weight among the three indicators by comparison the weights of capacity and potential are 0 13 and 0 30 secondly the provinces with strong economic ability and lower carbon reduction potential may get fewer proportions of carbon emission quotas such as beijing thirdly since undertaking the function transfer and dispersal of beijing and tianjin hebei should have a relatively high carbon emission quotas in the future carbon trading market these results may provide insightful support for decision makers to promote collaborative carbon reduction and allocate carbon quotas in beijing tianjin hebei region of china

estimating most productive scale size using data envelopment analysis abstract the relation between the most productive scale size mpss for paparticular input and output mixes and returns to scale for multiple inputs multiple outputs situations is explicitly developed this relation is then employed to extend the applications of data envelopment analysis dea introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes ccr to the estimation of most productive scale sizes for convex production possibility sets it is then shown that in addition to productive inefficiencies at the actual scale size the ccr efficiency measure also reflects any inefficiencies due to divergence from the most productive scale size two illustrations of the practical applications of these results to the estimation of most productive scale sizes and returns to scale for hospitals and stem electric generation plants are also provided emphasize the advantage of this method in examining specific segments of the efficient production surface

carbon allowance auction design of china s emissions trading scheme a multi agent based approach in this paper a multi agent based ets simulation model is proposed for carbon allowance auction design in china in the proposed model two main agents i e the government the ets implementer and the firms in different sectors the ets targets are considered under the ets policy all agents make various decisions individually according to their own goals and interact with each other through three main markets the commodity market the primary carbon auction market and the secondary carbon trading market different popular auction designs are introduced into the ets formulation to offer helpful insights into china s ets design 1 generally the ets would lead to positive effects on china s carbon mitigation and energy structure improvement but a negative impact on economy 2 as for auction forms the uniform price design is relatively moderate while the discriminative price design is quite aggressive in both economic damage and emissions reduction 3 as for carbon price the uniform price auction might generate a slightly higher market clearing price than the discriminative price auction and the prices under two auction rules fluctuate about rmb 40 per metric ton 4 as for carbon cap the total allowances in the carbon auction market should be carefully set to well balance economic growth and mitigation effect

best practice technology in an adverse environment the case of indian sugar 1981 1986 abstract empirical production frontiers are sometimes observed to shift downward over certain periods of time associating higher quantities of input with lower quantities of output this phenomenon is quite different than an increase in observed inefficiency relative to best practice we find such a shift for the indian vacuum pan sugar industry and identify its cause as environmental adversity reducing the performance of best practice technology specifically agro climatic difficulties exacerbated by regulation induced rigidities provide the adverse environment the case serves as a context for a re examination of the concepts of best practice technology and technological regress

equity in international greenhouse gases abatement scenarios a multicriteria approach abstract the climate change problem involves long term global efforts through sustainable development the international burden sharing of greenhouse gases ghg abatement constitutes a controversial debate equity is an important issue to be considered in the mitigation policies to insure the participation of as many developing countries as possible the main purpose of this research is to allocate equitable international ghg emission entitlements using several criteria there are many equity definitions and some are conflicting a dynamical multicriterion method is proposed to compare various alternatives and to find a compromise solution if the decision making process can take into account interests and preoccupations of every country significant progress could be made to achieve a world consensus several burden sharing schemes are proposed then modeling abatement scenarios using the times world energy model will allow us to determine the cost effectiveness opportunities

case study on initial allocation of shanghai carbon emission trading based on shapley value abstract carbon emission trading is an effective measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide china has publicized plans to initiate the demonstration of carbon emission trading in seven regions as of 2013 initial allocation is fundamental but it proposes difficulty in the mechanism design of the carbon emission trading system benchmark grandfathering and the shapley value have been employed to simulate a specific case which consists of the initial allocation of carbon emission allowances of three power plants in shanghai china the results of the shapley value are regarded as a theoretical equitable reference the results of benchmark are similar to those of the shapley value however it is apparent that the allocation regarding grandfathering is inequitable considering other factors we proposed the following at the introduction of experimental stage free allocation pertaining to grandfathering can be adopted meanwhile benchmark should be prepared and adopted at the appropriate time furthermore a portion of the initial allowances can be reserved for auction and this portion for auction will escalate to the extent of 100 upon entering the formal stage in addition the tiered price mechanism and the subsidy policy are also suggested

indian bank efficiency and productivity changes with undesirable outputs a disaggregated approach the objective of this study is to examine technical efficiency and productivity growth in the indian banking sector over the period from 2004 to 2011 we apply an innovative methodological approach introduced by chen et al 2011 and barros et al 2012 who use a weighted russell directional distance model to measure technical inefficiency we further modify and extend that model to measure tfp change with npls we find that the inefficiency levels are significantly different among the three ownership structure of banks in india foreign banks have strong market position in india and they pull the production frontier in a more efficient direction spbs and domestic private banks show considerably higher inefficiency we conclude that the restructuring policy applied in the late 1990s and early 2000s by the indian government has not had a long lasting effect

regional allocation of co2 emissions allowance over provinces in china by 2020 the mitigation efforts of china are increasingly important for meeting global climate target since the rapid economic growth of china has led to an increasing share in the world s total co2 emissions this paper sets out to explore the approach for realizing china s national mitigation targets submitted to the unfccc as part of the copenhagen accord that is to reduce the intensity of co2 emissions per unit of gdp by 40 45 by 2020 as well as reducing the energy intensity and increasing the share of non fossil fuel consumption through regional allocation of emission allowance over china s provinces since the realization of china s mitigation target essentially represents a total amount emission allowance allocation problem an improved zero sum gains data envelopment analysis optimization model which could deal with the constant total amount resources allocation is proposed in this study by utilizing this model and based on several scenarios of china s economic growth co2 emissions and energy consumption a new efficient emission allowance allocation scheme on provincial level for china by 2020 is proposed the allocation results indicate that different provinces have to shoulder different mitigation burdens in terms of emission intensity reduction energy intensity reduction and share of non fossil fuels increase

how can china reach its co2 intensity reduction targets by 2020 a regional allocation based on equity and development in late 2009 the chinese government committed to cut its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product gdp by 40 to 45 of 2005 levels by 2020 this has raised the issue of how to allocate the co2 reduction target regionally to meet the national reduction target to meet this objective the following aspects may be taken into consideration equity principles common but differentiated responsibilities intensity reduction target fulfillment and economic difference and reduction potential among provinces this paper selects per capita gdp accumulated fossil fuel related co2 emissions and energy consumption per unit of industrial added value as indicators for emission reduction capacity responsibility and potential respectively based on these three indicators a comprehensive index is developed and an intensity allocation model constructed as decision makers may have different preferences when allocating the reduction burden we allocate different weights to the indicators analyzing the results using cluster analysis the following aspects may also be considered together with the national regional development strategy to determine how to share the burden the reduction potential of various regions implementation potential of the plans and promotion of a highly efficient low carbon economic development model

consignment auctions of free emissions allowances abstract while the initial distribution of emissions allowances is usually thought to be independent of the emissions outcome free allocation can affect the efficiency and fairness of allowance trading inefficiency may result from thin allowance markets poor price discovery and regulatory or organizational complexities that hinder the recognition of opportunity costs concerns about fairness may result from intransparency in the process of transferring substantial allowance value we explore the role of consignment auctions in mitigating these concerns these revenue neutral auctions return the financial value of allowances to their original holders while revealing prices and directing allowances to their highest valued use they also can be used to support a minimum price when allowances are freely distributed which may facilitate program linkage consignment auctions have minimal administrative costs and do not necessarily involve government experience indicates that they can play an important role especially in new markets

cost effectiveness measures on convex and nonconvex technologies abstract camanho and dyson 2005 extended shephard s 1974 revenue indirect cost efficiency approach to a cost effectiveness framework which helps to assess the ability of a firm to achieve the current revenue expressed in the firm s own prices and quantities at minimum cost the degree of cost effectiveness is quantified as the ratio of the minimum cost to the observed cost of the evaluated firm where the minimum cost is computed by simultaneously adjusting the output levels at the current revenue in this paper we develop two cost effectiveness approaches based on convex data envelopment analysis and nonconvex free disposable hull technologies the objectives of this paper are threefold firstly we develop a convex cost effectiveness cce measure which is equivalent to the camanho dyson cce measure under the constant returns to scale assumption secondly we introduce three nonconvex cost effectiveness ncce measures which are shown to be equivalent with respect to each returns to scale nonconvex technology finally we apply our framework to a real data

total factor productivity growth technological progress and technical efficiency change dimensions of productivity change in yugoslavia 1965 1978 this article total factor productivity growth technological progress and technical efficiency change dimensions of productivity change in yugoslavia 1965 78 was reprinted with permission from the december 1982 issue of the economic journal this article proposes a methodology that decomposes total factor productivity change into two distinct elements technological progress and changes in technical efficiency technological progress is defined as the change in the best practice production frontier all other productivity change is attributed to technical efficiency change the article provides a theoretical framework for decomposing total factor productivity growth as well as a specification and estimation of the deterministic frontier production function it employs a programming technique to estimate a flexible functional form of the production frontier the paper then applies this technique to empirical data from yugoslavia of the period from 1965 to 1978 it concludes that for yugoslavia improvements to technical efficiency comprise the dominant contribution to total factor productivity change this agrees with accumulating evidence that in many developing economies productivity gain due to technological mastery of imported technology is substantial

economies of diversification in the banking industry abstract this paper defines a new measure economies of diversification to examine the cost effect of product line expansion this measure is a special case of expansion path subadditivity and contains economies of scope as a special case a nonparametric frontier technique which isolates the effects of inefficiency and scale is used to measure economies of diversification applied to a set of 468 u s depository institutions operating in 1984 we find slight diseconomies of diversification diseconomies of diversification and inefficiency due to the overutilization of resources are found to be more important determinants of bank costs than is the failure to operate at optimal scale

business cycle duration dependence reconsidered sichel estimated a weibull hazard model using the national bureau of economic research business cycle chronology and found evidence of duration dependence only for prewar expansions and postwar contractions the article updates the postwar sample through the end of the most recent expansion and uses a generalized weibull model that provides much greater flexibility at the expense of one additional parameter this model finds evidence of duration dependence for all samples and is statistically superior to the conventional weibull model for all samples except postwar contractions

optimal strategies for carbon reduction at dual levels in china based on a hybrid nonlinear grey prediction and quota allocation model abstract in this research a hybrid nonlinear grey prediction and quota allocation model hngp qam wasdeveloped for supporting optimal planning of china s carbon intensity reduction at both departmentaland provincial levels in 2020 at such dual levels hngp qam can not only help forecast carbon intensityand its uctuations over the concerned period but also facilitate the identi cation of china s carbonintensity reduction target in 2020 and the corresponding quotas for minimizing the total abatement cost two scenarios were developed based on multiple governmental policies and allocation schemes amongprovinces and departments the results showed that the total abatement cost would be 92 07 and98 93 10 9 as well as 180 57 and 194 19 10 9 rmb it is another shortname for china yuan for pro vincial and departmental allocation schemes under the reduction ratios of 40 and 45 respectively furthermore the west the east and the central china would be allocated the emission assignments thatwould be accounting for 48 53 28 26 and 23 21 of the total national emission reduction respectively the obtained results were particularly useful for multi level governments in providing information toidentify the carbon intensity reduction target conducting emission reduction assignments amongprovinces and departments as well as supporting relevant policy making the results also suggested thatthe developed hngp qam be applicable to similar engineering and planning problems 2014 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

small is not that beautiful after all measuring the scale efficiency of tunisian high schools using a dea bootstrap method allocation of resources to schools in a centrally managed state system as the tunisian one should depend on the performance of the individual institutions the optimal size is of crucial importance in this context and we need accurate measurement for sound policies this article discusses and implements a nonparametric statistical test procedure for organization scale efficiency this procedure allows us to test whether the observed scale efficiency is optimal or not using a smooth bootstrap methodology for efficiency measures estimated using data envelopment analysis dea methods because school principals do not control for the size of their institution i e the capital available at decision time the scale efficiency measures are defined so as to include quasi fixed inputs the results show that scale efficiency measures are subject to sampling variation we also found that the schools that are scale efficient are usually mid sized and large schools when size is measured by the number of students

efficiency and allocation of emission allowances and energy consumption over more sustainable european economies abstract efficient use of energy reduction in fossil fuel dependence and control of co2 emissions are all fundamental to development of a sustainable economy competitiveness in energy use saves imports of oil and gas increases gross domestic product and creates new jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors this study identifies the more or less competitive european union member states in terms of sustainable growth using data envelopment analysis dea model and proposes new allocations of country greenhouse gas limits and energy consumption using a zero sum gains dea model the analysis of european countries fills a gap in the existing literature and contributes to the discussion on the 2020 2030 european strategy proposing an efficiency based indicator which measures country performance in terms of economic social and environmental factors gdp represents the economic factor population represents the social factor and emissions final and renewable energy consumption are the environmental factors the numerical results show that the initial allocations are inefficient applying the modelled reallocation the most efficient countries are rewarded by potential increases in emission and energy consumption while the least efficient countries must bring about decreases to achieve full efficiency

a nonparametric investigation of duration dependence in the american business cycle does the termination probability of a business expansion or contraction increase with age this question may be formally addressed by analyzing the nature of duration dependence in aggregate economic activity our null hypothesis is that there is no duration dependence which we test via intentionally nonparametric procedures we also argue that common notion of business cycle periodicity can be usefully interpreted in terms of whole cycle duration dependence we find some evidence for duration dependence in whole cycles and in prewar expansions but little evidence elsewhere

productivity growth technical progress and efficiency change in industrialized countries this paper analyzes productivity growth in 17 oecd countries over the period 1979 1988 a nonparametric programming method activity analysis is used to compute malmquist productivity indexes these are decomposed into two component measures namely technical change and efficiency change we find that u s productivity growth is slightly higher than average all of which is due to technical change japan s productivity growth is the highest in the sample with almost half due to efficiency change jel c43 d24 in this paper we apply recently developed

a more scientific allocation scheme of carbon dioxide emissions allowances the case from china abstract efficient allocation of carbon dioxide co2 emissions allowances is essential to the realization of the emissions reduction goal using china as an example this study applies a zero sum gains data envelopment analysis zsg dea model to translate the country s reduction target into provincial goals based on the chinese government s 2020 reduction goal to evaluate efficiency scores we employ the epsilon based measure model that combines radial and non radial characteristics different from prior studies we emphasize the effect of industrial structure on co2 emissions and calculate a composite gross domestic product gdp index as one of the output variables by utilizing the zsg dea model and based on china s provincial co2 emissions allowances as the input variable the composite gdp index and the population as the output variable we obtain an optimal reallocation scheme after four iterations a comparison between the results and official reduction goals shows that the government should increase co2 emissions allowances appropriately for most provinces with high proportions more than 40 of second industry increment in gdp thereby carrying implications for policymakers with china as an example these findings have global implications as regards developing a more scientific allocation scheme especially for regions with unbalanced industrial structures