Urban green total factor energy efficiency and its decomposition under a multidimensional heterogeneity framework: a case study of the Yellow River Basin, China.

Assessing and monitoring the green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE) of cities while considering technology heterogeneity is crucial for the development of energy-conservation and emission-reduction policies. Considering that the heterogeneity of production technologies encompasses several dimensions, this paper proposes a 3E3S (Economy-Environment-Energy-Society-Science-Space) heterogeneity framework and integrates it with the improved meta-frontier global SBM-undesirable to analyze GTFEE and its decomposition. Empirical analysis of cities in the Yellow River Basin of China (YRBC) highlights the following: (1) The 3E3S heterogeneity framework facilitates the classification of all cities into three distinct groups, a finding that contrasts significantly with previous outcomes documented in the literature that relied solely on criteria such as geographic location. (2) The three groups identified under the meta-frontier exhibit substantial energy-saving potentials of 24.49%, 35.17%, and 52.46%, respectively. Additionally, there are spatiotemporal variations in GTFEE, with cities located in the central part of YRBC, particularly those in Shanxi province, demonstrating poor GTFEE performance. (3) The decomposition analysis of GTFEE indicates that technological progress plays a pivotal role in enhancing GTFEE on the whole, albeit with varying approaches for improving GTFEE depending on individual cities.

Towards a sustainable construction: A newly proposed Tapio-global meta-frontier DEA framework for decoupling China's construction economy from its carbon emissions.

Uncovering the decoupling degree and its influencing factors is an important work to look for the carbon abatement and sustainable development in China's construction industry (CCI). To arrive at a solution, we proposed a research framework by taking into account the Tapio decoupling model and biased directional distance function based on global meta-frontier DEA, so as to reveal out the motive force and resistance that can help decouple construction industry economy from its carbon emissions. Discussion results indicate that during the sample period: (1) China's construction economy and carbon emissions exhibited weak decoupling. The advances of energy/production technology were two dominant factors in helping construction economy decoupled from carbon emissions, while construction economic activity exerted the largest effects in impeding decoupling process. (2) The decoupling degree and driving effects differed significantly in three regions. Regional energy/production technology disparity narrowed in central and western region, and further contributed to their decoupling. Energy-biased and output-biased scale change exerted impeding effects on the decoupling in eastern and central region, while exerted diametrically opposite effects on western region's decoupling. Besides, the change of energy/production resource allocation efficiency in eastern and western region acted motivating effects in their decoupling, while formed restriction in central region's decoupling.

How does internet development drive the sustainable economic growth of China? Evidence from internal-structural perspective of green total-factor productivity.

Clarifying internal-structural transmission paths of internet development on China's green total-factor productivity (GTFP) is of great significance for understanding China's economic growth in the era of digital transition. In this paper, GTFP is decomposed by three-hierarchy meta-frontier DEA into technology, industrial structural, regional balance development, scale, and management efficiencies based on China's provincial data. Then, dynamic GMM models are applied to investigate the internal-structural effect of internet development on GTFP. The results illustrate that internet development significantly improves GTFP by promoting technology, optimizing industrial structural, and advancing scale efficiencies. But it inhibits regional balance development and management efficiencies. Based on the results, this study offers new insights and valuable policy implications for China to promote sustainable economic growth.

Analyzing the effect of health reforms on the efficiency of Ecuadorian public hospitals.

This study aims to assess whether Ecuadorian health reforms carried out since 2008 have affected the efficiency performance of public hospitals in the country. We contribute to the literature by shedding new light on the effects on public healthcare efficiency for developing countries when policies move toward health equity and universal coverage. We follow a two-stage approach, wherein the first stage we make use of factor and cluster analysis to obtain three clusters of public hospitals based on their technological endowment; we exploit Data Envelopment Analysis for panel data in the second stage to estimate robust efficiency measures over time. Our innovative empirical strategy considers the heterogeneity of healthcare institutions in the analysis of their efficiency performance. The results show a significant decrease in the average efficiency of low and intermediate technology hospitals after the new constitution was adopted in 2008. The decline in efficiency coincides with the two reforms of 2010 and 2011 that brought on higher social security coverage.

Regional disparities and drivers of carbon emissions in China: A temporal-spatial production-theoretical decomposition analysis.

Given the increasing interest in keeping global warming below 1.5°C, carbon emissions reduction has become a hot topic. However, the regional disparities and the driving factors were not paid enough attention. This article established an indicator to describe the catch-up effort of different regions and proposed a temporal-spatial production-theoretical decomposition model using meta-frontier and global-frontier to capture the driving forces of the catch-up effort of different provinces to benchmarking provinces. The new model was applied to analyze China's regional carbon emissions during 2007 to 2018. The main findings from the empirical study are: (1) Overall, the regional carbon emissions and their spatial variation kept increasing during the study period. (2) Economic activity, potential carbon factor, carbon-abatement technology efficiency and regional carbon-abatement technology gap were the main drivers. (3) The improvement efforts of carbon-abatement, energy-saving technical efficiency, and potential energy intensity were the dominant factors inhibiting the growth of carbon emissions. (4) The improvement efforts of advanced technology and potential energy intensity helped to reduce the regional gaps, but their impacts varied considerably across regions in China.

Achieving Net Zero-An Illustration of Carbon Emissions Reduction with A New Meta-Inverse DEA Approach.

To achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels, net-zero emissions targets were proposed to assist countries in planning their long-term reduction. Inverse Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be used to determine optimal input and output levels without sacrificing the set environmental efficiency target. However, treating countries as having the same capability to mitigate carbon emissions without considering their different developmental stages is not only unrealistic but also inappropriate. Therefore, this study incorporates a meta-concept into inverse DEA. This study adopts a three-stage approach. In the first stage, a meta-frontier DEA method is adopted to assess and compare the eco-efficiency of developed and developing countries. In the second stage, the specific super-efficiency method is adopted to rank the efficient countries specifically focused on carbon performance. In the third stage, carbon dioxide emissions reduction targets are proposed for the developed and developing countries separately. Then, a new meta-inverse DEA method is used to allocate the emissions reduction target to the inefficient countries in each of the specific groups. In this way, we can find the optimal CO2 reduction amount for the inefficient countries with unchanged eco-efficiency levels. The implications of the new meta-inverse DEA method proposed in this study are twofold. The method can identify how a DMU can reduce undesirable outputs without sacrificing the set eco-efficiency target, which is especially useful in achieving net-zero emissions since this method provides a roadmap for decision-makers to understand how to allocate the emissions reduction targets to different units. In addition, this method can be applied to heterogeneous groups where they are assigned to different emissions reduction targets.

Transportation carbon emission reduction potential and mitigation strategy in China.

Effectively reducing transportation carbon emissions is greatly significant to achieve the carbon peaking and neutral goals of China. On the basis of considering regional technology heterogeneity, we employ the parametric meta-frontier approach to analyze the carbon emission performance and reduction potential of the transportation sector in China. Then, we further decompose the emission reduction potential's contributors into removing management inefficiencies and filling technology gaps. The estimated potential carbon emission reductions from transportation sector in China are 12.3 million tons, accounting for 8.4 % of the annual transportation carbon emissions. Specifically, the eastern regions, especially Shandong, Shanghai, and Liaoning have the greatest carbon emission reduction potential; while Qinghai, Jiangxi, and Ningxia have the smallest potential. As the major contributors to the potential emission reductions, filling technology gaps and removing management inefficiencies account for 57.5 % and 42.5 % of the total potential, respectively. Moreover, removing management inefficiencies dominate for the eastern region and filling technology gaps for the central and western regions. Finally, we provide provincial-specific emission mitigation strategies based on the identification of the reduction potential and its contributors. Our policy implications help decision-makers to facilitate the low-carbon development of transportation sector.

Can Comprehensive Medical Reform Improve the Efficiency of Medical Resource Allocation? Evidence From China.

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of comprehensive medical reform on the efficiency of medical resource allocation in China. Methods: This study employs the Slacks-Based Measure- Directional Distance Function (SBM-DDF) to estimate the efficiency of medical resource allocation (MRAE) in China, using panel data from 30 provinces during 2009-2021. Moreover, a multi-period Difference in differences (DID) model is developed to explore the effect of the comprehensive medical reform pilot (CMRP) strategy on efficiency of medical resource allocation in China. Results: The results show that the average value of China's medical resources allocation efficiency is 0.861 during the sample period. Coastal area has a higher MRAE than that in the inland area. The DID results show that the comprehensive medical reform pilot strategy has a good, long-lasting impact on the efficiency of medical resource allocation. And the results remain valid after a series of robustness analysis. Additionally, the comprehensive medical reform policy has heterogeneous impact on efficiency of medical resource allocation. The promotion effect is only statistically significant in the eastern and central regions, the groups of higher MRAE and larger population size. Conclusion: China's comprehensive medical reform policy can effectively promote the improvement of regional efficiency of medical resource allocation.

The Spatial Non-Equilibrium and Convergence of Chinese Grain Enterprises' Total Factor Productivity-Evidence from China.

The improvement of grain processing capacity is crucial to the realization of grain security. Enterprises are important grain processing bodies and their productivity directly determines grain processing capacity. Chinese grain processing enterprises still have difficulties, and how to further improve grain processing capacity and the total factor productivity of grain processing enterprises may be an important aspect. We used the meta-frontier Malmquist index to measure the total factor productivity of grain enterprises as well as judge the change trend and regional gap, applying the classical regression model to test the convergence of China's overall and regional grain enterprises' total factor productivity. This research finds that the total factor productivity of grain processing enterprises increased by 1.18% annually during the sample period, and that of the central region rose more quickly than the other areas of China. Technical progress contributes more to enterprises' total factor productivity, but technical efficiency may become a key factor in determining it. The difference in the growth rate of the grain processing enterprises' total factor productivity among different ones in the eastern and western regions is gradually narrowing, while that of the central region is gradually expanding; there is an obvious technological catch-up effect between and within the regions, especially in the central area of China.

The Heterogeneity of High-Quality Economic Development in China's Mining Cities: A Meta Frontier Function.

The transformation of mining cities and the realization of high-quality economic development are complicated processes. The objective existence of abundant resource factor endowment in mining cities does not mean that resource allocation is in the optimal state and can play the greatest role. The optimal allocation of factors for the high-quality economic development of mining cities is more important than the resource factors. The input-output allocation efficiency of high-quality economic development under the common frontier and group frontier of 99 mining cities in China from 2006 to 2019 is calculated by using the data envelopment analysis method and common frontier model, and the pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency are decomposed. The results show that (1) the comprehensive technical efficiency values under both common frontiers and group frontiers show that the factor allocation efficiency in the process of high-quality economic development of different mining cities shows obvious heterogeneity. (2) The growth of the input-output allocation efficiency of the high-quality economic development of mining cities has significant spatial convergence characteristics, but the convergence speed is different. (3) The high-quality development path of the mining city's economy should not only focus on comprehensively improving the ability of resource element input and output allocation but also improve the group environment.

Evaluation of Unified Healthcare Efficiency in China: A Meta-Frontier Non-radial Directional Distance Function Analysis During 2009-2019.

In this study, we analyze the unified healthcare efficiency in China at the regional level from 2009 to 2019. To accurately evaluate the evolution of unified efficiency from both static and dynamic perspectives, we combine the non-radial directional distance function and the meta-frontier method to evaluate the unified healthcare efficiency and its dynamic changes. This new approach allows for regional heterogeneity and non-radial slack simultaneously. The decomposition of the meta-frontier non-radial Malmquist unified healthcare efficiency index (MNMHEI) can be used to identify the driving factors of dynamic changes. The results show that the unified healthcare efficiency in eastern China is generally higher than that in non-eastern China from the static perspective, implying significant regional differences. Moreover, the unified efficiency in both eastern and non-eastern regions shows similar time trends and reaches the maximum in 2012. From the dynamic perspective, the unified healthcare efficiency increases annually by 2.68% during the study period. This increase in eastern China as a technology leader is mainly driven by technological progress, whereas the increase in non-eastern China is mainly driven by a better catch-up effect. In addition, the impact of the reform on the non-eastern region is more significant for the decreasing technology gap, the stronger growth momentum of technological progress, and global innovative provinces.

How does power technology innovation affect carbon productivity? A spatial perspective in China.

Power technology innovation has been positioned as an effective way to contribute to China's carbon productivity. However, limited empirical evidence exists on the impact of power technology innovation on carbon productivity. Thus, based on the annual panel dataset of 30 China's provinces from 2001 to 2019, this study explored whether and how power technology innovation promotes or impedes the improvement of carbon productivity. First, carbon productivity in the framework of total factor was calculated based on the metafrontier Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index. Second, the effect of power technology innovation on carbon productivity was investigated using the spatial Durbin model. And we also examined whether heterogeneous power technology innovations have a synergistic effect on carbon productivity. Third, influence mechanism of power technology innovation affecting carbon productivity was identified. Results show that (1) there are notable differences in China's provincial carbon productivity, which is characterized by the spatial correlation. (2) Local power technology innovation has a promotion effect on carbon productivity in both local and neighboring provinces. Moreover, the promotion effect of breakthrough power technology innovation is stronger than that of incremental power technology innovation. (3) Catching-up Effect and Innovation Effect are important transmission channels through which power technology innovation improves carbon productivity. Finally, policy recommendations are provided.

The development of China's Circular Economy: From the perspective of environmental regulation.

While achieving rapid economic growth, the pressure caused by environmental pollution and resource depletion has increasingly become a bottleneck in China's economic development, making the development of a circular economy particularly important. The extant literature has not focused on the influence of environmental regulation on a circular economy performance. This study uses the metafrontier global direction distance function (Metafrontier-Global-DDF) super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to estimate the circular economy performance and decomposition values of circular economy growth rate in 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2018. It further tests the influences of environmental regulations on circular economy performance and its influencing mechanism. The results show that environmental regulation can play a linear role in promoting the performance of the circular economy, mainly through the "catch-up effect," while "innovation effect" and "demonstration effect" have not yet played an effective role. This study provides evidence for the performance evaluation of the circular economy in China and the relationship between environmental regulations and circular economy performance. The future development of a circular economy still needs the active development of circular economy technology in each city. The role of the "innovation effect" and "demonstration effect" in improving the performance of the circular economy should be further enhanced.

Spatial and Temporal Differences in the Health Expenditure Efficiency of China: Reflections Based on the Background of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought several challenges to China's national health services, causing great risks and uncertainties to people's lives. Considering China's huge population and relatively small medical investment and its good performance in the COVID-19 pandemic, this research utilizes the hybrid meta-frontier model to analyze health expenditure efficiencies of 30 provinces in China from 1999 to 2018 and compares spatial and temporal differences of the efficiencies in regards to regional forward position and national common frontier. The results show an obvious difference in health expenditure efficiency in different provinces along the regional frontier, in which the efficiency gap in the eastern region is the largest. Moreover, the room for improvement in health expenditure efficiency varies from region to region. For the national common frontier, Beijing is the most efficient, while Guizhou is the least. The eastern region owns the most efficient technical level of health expenditure efficiency, and there is a large efficiency distance between it and the western region. The findings offer effective guidance for elevating the expenditure structure and spatial resource allocation of public health and for promoting the equalization of high quality basic medical services.

Unraveling the role of China's OFDI, institutional difference and B&R policy on energy efficiency: a meta-frontier super-SBM approach.

Under the Belt and Road initiative, the cooperative network between Chinese firms and participating countries has evolved rapidly to seek new markets for foreign investment. Foreign investment is one of the most effective ways of improving environmental energy efficiency through technology spillover. Therefore, first, this article applies the foreign direct investment theory with an interactive effect of institutional difference on energy efficiency. We employed the meta-frontier super-slacks-based measure approach to find the sampled countries' environmental energy efficiency. We also divided the study sample into six regions to consider group heterogeneity and the variation in energy efficiency performance in various Belt and Road regions. For the empirical investigation, we applied the generalized method of moments approach. The impact of China's outward foreign direct investment on energy efficiency is positive in the full sample. Nevertheless, the region-wise study found mixed results regarding China's outward foreign direct investment to promote energy efficiency and the Belt and Road region. In addition, the study further infers that institutional distance can be the greater impediment to promoting host countries' efficient energy-based investment.

Research on the improvement of total factor productivity in China's power industry: a perspective of technological heterogeneity.

An improvement in total factor productivity of the power industry (TFPPI) is crucial for achieving China's green transformation and high-quality development. Considering the technological heterogeneity of different regions, the Meta-frontier Global Malmquist-Luenberger(MGML) index was constructed to measure TFPPI in China's 30 provinces from 2003 to 2017, and then we investigated the dynamic evolution and regional differences of TFPPI. On this basis, the two-step system GMM method was used to explore the influencing factors of TFPPI. The results showed that: (1) During the survey period, the average annual growth rate of China's TFPPI was 4.2%, and average values of TFPPI in all provinces were greater than 1. The innovation effect was the key to TFPPI growth, while the catch-up effect and leading effect were not significant. (2) TFPPI showed a decreasing trend from the western to eastern and central regions, with average annual growth rates of 5.69%, 3.66%, and 2.89%, respectively, and the driving factors of each region were different. Moreover, the technology gap was narrowing. (3) Both the economic development level and R&D level had a positive impact on TFPPI, whereas the power consumption intensity was negatively correlated with TFPPI. Based on the conclusions of this paper, some effective recommendations were put forward to improve TFPPI.

The total factor productivity index of freshwater aquaculture in China: based on regional heterogeneity.

Continuously improving freshwater aquaculture efficiency will promote the sustainable development of freshwater aquaculture, which is crucial to ensure aquatic food supply. In particular, measuring the total factor productivity (TFP) of freshwater aquaculture to find ways to improve its efficiency is of great significance to sustainable development of freshwater aquaculture industry. Therefore, based on directional distance function, this paper constructs a meta-frontier Malmquist index (MMI) model by considering the regional heterogeneity to evaluate the TFP of freshwater aquaculture of China from 2004 to 2019. The results show that (1) from the perspective of time, TFP fluctuated significantly from 2004 to 2012, while after 2013, TFP remained around 1 with small fluctuation. In other words, freshwater aquaculture in China began to maintain a relatively negative state of development. (2) From a regional point of view, this study found that freshwater aquaculture TFP of inland region is better than the TFP of coastal region. (3) From the decomposition index, the variation of freshwater aquaculture TFP was driven by the combined effect of technology change (TC) and technical efficiency change (EC). In addition, the decomposition index efficiency shows that the technical efficiency decreases and the management efficiency changes little. (4) The gap of freshwater aquaculture technology in coastal areas is very small, and close to the optimal technical level. While in inland region, on the contrary, there is more room for improvement. According to the above empirical results, this paper finally gives some policy suggestions to improve the TFP to ensure the sustainable development of freshwater aquaculture.

Towards Ecological Sustainability: Assessing Dynamic Total-Factor Ecology Efficiency in Africa.

Ecological footprint (EF) and human development index (HDI) are two critical indicators for assessing sustainable development worldwide. Past studies in Africa have ignored dynamic sustainable total-factor ecological efficiency (DSTFEE) assessment. This present study proffers a novel dynamic sustainable total-factor ecological efficiency (DSTFEE) that comprehensively assesses the ecological efficiency among 44 sampled African economies from 2010 to 2016. Our study incorporates EF and HDI in the model. Second, the study evaluates regional DSTFEE heterogeneity efficiency as well as the technological gap efficiency in Africa. Further, projection analysis is done to offer a viable solution path to address the inefficient African countries. Third, the study investigates the determinants of ecological efficiency using the bootstrap truncation regression technique. The results from the implemented models are as follows: first, the DSTFEE for the 44 sampled African countries is very low (0.403), indicating enormous potential for improvement. Second, the heterogeneity of DSTFEE across the five Africa regional blocs is evident. The southern bloc had the highest efficiency score, followed by the northern, central, western, and eastern regions. The technology gap ratio also reveals a massive gap among the five Africa regional blocs. Third, the bootstrap truncation regression results established a U-shape nexus between growth and DSTFEE in Africa. REC and trade openness is positively corrected to DSTFEE for African countries. In contrast, financial development, foreign direct investment (FDI), and urbanization impede dynamic ecological efficiency in Africa. The study's results equip African countries with adequate knowledge of their ecological efficiency situation and provide them a viable path to improve environmental efficiency, thereby boosting their ecological sustainability.

Is carbon neutrality feasible for Korean manufacturing firms?: The CO2 emissions performance of the Metafrontier Malmquist-Luenberger index.

To achieve carbon neutrality, the Korean government has promoted regulatory policies on the transition toward a carbon free economy in 2050. Unfortunately, these policies face strong complaints from industries with respect to losing international competitiveness owing to extra cost burdens. Is it feasible to achieve a carbon neutral economy with these regulatory policies? This study tries answering the question by evaluating the CO2 emissions performances of the Korean manufacturing industry for feasible solutions toward a carbon neutral economy. For this purpose, we adopted the metafrontier Malmquist-Luenberger (MML) index to reflect group heterogeneity at the technology level. Forty subsectors of manufacturing industrial data were collected from 2012 to 2017, which were classified under four technological levels: high, middle-high, middle-low, and low. The CO2 emissions performance showed a poor effect from the policies, with an overall 0.8% deterioration (-0.8%) in the CO2 emissions. Under the group heterogeneity, the middle-high and middle-low technology groups showed a significantly slower upward trend, implying that the environmental regulatory regime did not have a strong effect on these groups. To obtain a feasible solution for this fine tuning, MML decomposition was implemented in the second stage. As the efficiency change is the main driver that influences the CO2 emissions performance, the Korean government should encourage the catching-up effect in industries via a green cultural revolution, as well as provide strong incentives to avoid negligible performance in the innovation effect, supported by more market-oriented emissions trading schemes (ETSs).

Evaluating the higher education productivity of Chinese and European "elite" universities using a meta-frontier approach.

This research focuses on a sample of European and Chinese elite universities for the period 2011-2015. We adopt a meta-frontier methodology to decompose their overall productivity in three main determinants: (1) technical efficiency compared with contemporaneous technology, (2) change in technical efficiency and (3) technology relative superiority of the two groups of universities. The results reveal different patterns of evolution: Chinese institutions' productivity grows faster than that of their European counterparts (+ 7.15%/year vs 4.51%/year), however the latter maintain a higher level of technology in efficient production as a group.