Trade-offs between economic, environmental and social sustainability on farms using a latent class frontier efficiency model: Evidence for Spanish crop farms

This article studies trade-offs of farms in terms of economic sustainability (proxied here by technical efficiency), environmental sustainability (proxied here by farmers’ commitment towards the environment) and social sustainability (proxied here by farmers’ contribution to on farm well-being and communities’ well-being). We use the latent class stochastic frontier model and create classes based on three separating variables, representing farms’ environmental sustainability and social sustainability. The application to a sample of Spanish crop farms shows that more environmentally sustainable farms are likely to have lower levels of technical efficiency. However, improvements in social concerns, both towards own farm and the larger community, may lead to improved technical efficiency levels. In general, our study provides evidence of trade-offs for farms between economic sustainability and environmental sustainability, but also between environmental sustainability and social sustainability.

Health care quality in nonparametric efficiency studies: a review

Scientists are increasingly considering quality in nonparametric frontier efficiency studies in health care. There are many ways to include quality in efficiency analyses. These approaches differ, among other things, in the underlying assumptions about the influence of quality on the attainable efficiency frontier and the distribution of inefficiency scores. The aim is to provide an overview of how scholars have taken quality into account in nonparametric frontier efficiency studies and, at the same time, to address the underlying assumptions on the relationship between efficiency and quality. To this end, we categorized empirical efficiency studies according to the methodological approaches and quality dimensions and collected the quality indicators used. We performed a Web of Science search for studies published in journals covered by the Science Citation Index Expanded, the Social Sciences Citation Index, and the Emerging Sources Citation Index between 1980 and 2020. Of the 126 studies covered in this review, 78 are one-stage studies that incorporate quality directly into the efficiency model and thus assume that quality impacts the attainable efficiency frontier. Forty-four articles are two-stage studies that consider quality in the first and the second stage or the second stage only. Four studies do not assume a priori a specific association between efficiency and quality. Instead, they test for this relationship empirically. Outcome quality is by far the most frequently incorporated quality dimension. While most studies consider structural quality as an environmental variable in the second stage, they include outcome quality predominantly directly in the efficiency model. Process quality is less common.

Efficiency in Vietnamese Banking: A Meta-Regression Analysis Approach

This study explains the differences and variances in the efficiency scores of the Vietnamese banking sector retrieved from 27 studies published in refereed academic journals under the framework of meta-regression analysis. These scores are mainly based on frontier efficiency measurements, which essentially are Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) for Vietnamese banks over the period of 2007–2019. The meta-regression is estimated by using truncated regression to obtain bias-corrected scores. Our findings suggest that only the year of publication is positively correlated with efficiency, whilst the opposite is true for the data type, and sample size.

Sustainable Performance Analysis of Power Supply Chain System from the Perspective of Technology and Management

The power industry is an important strategic industry that has effectively advanced the rapid development of China’s economy. However, this rapid development has created significant environmental problems and does not support the sustainable development of the ecological environment and economy. This study evaluated and analyzed the sustainable performance of China’s inter-provincial power supply chain systems (PSCSs), and developed policy recommendations for further developing China’s power industry based on the research results. For PSCSs with internal subsystems, this study first developed a non-radial two-stage model, and proposed steps to solve the model; then, this study applied the proposed model to empirically analyze China’s inter-provincial PSCSs. The empirical analysis yielded the following key research findings. Firstly, for the study period, China’s power industry had a low overall performance, and PSCS performance varied significantly across different regions. Secondly, the average meta-frontier efficiency (ME) of PSCSs in high-income regions was the highest; the average ME of PSCSs in middle-income regions was the lowest. This is consistent with the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Thirdly, this study found that the PSCSs had effective management and technical systems in Qinghai and Guangdong. The PSCSs in other regions need improvements to mitigate either inadequate management, inadequate technology, or both.

Predicting recessions with a frontier measure of output gap: an application to Italian economy

Despite the long and great history, developed institutions, and high level of physical and human capital, the Italian economy has been fairly stagnant during the last three decades. In this paper, we merge two streams of literature: nonparametric methods to estimate frontier efficiency of an economy, which allows us to develop a new measure of output gap, and nonparametric methods to estimate probability of an economic recession. To illustrate the new framework, we use quarterly data for Italy from 1995 to 2019 and find that our model, using either nonparametric or the linear probit model, is able to provide useful insights.

R&D, Marketing, Strategic Planning, or Human Resources? Which CEO Career Is Most Helpful for the Economic Sustainability of ICT Startups in South Korea?

The market performance of a company is greatly influenced by the functional experience of the chief executive. In the case of a small startup, the functional experience of the chief executive is even greater. Based on career data of chief executives, this study first classifies startups in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry into four different groups. In addition, this study analyzes the effect of the CEO’s experience on the market performance of ICT startups by deriving the efficiency of each company using the financial data of ICT startups provided in the database. This study estimates the technical efficiency of each group using stochastic frontier analysis and then uses meta-frontier analysis to compare the efficiency of different groups. As a result, the CEO group with a career in strategy and planning showed the highest meta-frontier efficiency, whereas the CEO group with a career in R&D showed the lowest.

Technical efficiency of local dairy milk processing in Kwara State, North Central, Nigeria.

This study examined the profitability and technical efficiency of local dairy milk processing in Kwara State using budgetary analysis and stochastic frontier model. Data set for the study was obtained through a randomly selected one hundred nomadic households in the state. The results of the budgetary analysis showed that local dairy milk processing was profitable in the study area with a net farm income of N683.25 per day. Results of the stochastic frontier efficiency model revealed the percentage efficiency to be 50-95 per cent with a mean of 76 per cent. The level of education of the nomadic household heads, the household size, as well as the years of experience in milk processing significantly reduced the inefficiency of local dairy milk processing in the study area. Improvement in the level of education of the milk processors will have positive implication on their technical efficiency.

Are Frontier Efficiency Methods Adequate to Compare the Efficiency of Water Utilities for Regulatory Purposes?

Frontier efficiency methods have been recurrently used in the water sector to assess the performance of water utilities. These methods are also used for yardstick regulation, with greater efficiency being sought by creating competition between the utilities, which can have an impact on decision-making processes, such as tariff setting. This study analyzes the adequacy and limitations of these methods for regulatory purposes, particularly how they deal with data uncertainty and their capacity to manage large number of variables. In order to achieve this, two representative methods—a nonparametric technique (data envelopment analysis) and an econometric one (stochastic frontier analysis)—are applied to an audited sample of 194 water utilities. Results will show that the results from the methods may not be considered conclusive in the water sector and their application should be carried out with considerable reservations.

Chinese High-speed Railway: Efficiency Comparison and the Future

High-speed railway (HSR) network building was initiated in China in the early 2000s, and full-scale construction began several years later as a larger use phase started in 2008. Thereafter, the expansion speed has been impressive. Network investment could be considered as a success, if evaluating the amount of high-speed railway usage already during the expansion phase. The diffusion models built in this research show that expansion in the network and growth of the passengers will continue at least until the following decade. The performance is evaluated in terms of DEA efficiency model. It is shown that efficiency started from very low levels, but it has been increasing together with the expansion of HSR network. Currently, the efficiency is near the level of the leading European High-speed (HS) countries (Germany and France). However, it is projected with linear model and by Bass diffusion models that the efficiency will reach Japanese and South Korean standards in the next decade. A somewhat larger network length with smaller relative growth of passengers, but with a higher growth of passenger-km seems to be able to reach even the frontier efficiency.

ANALISIS EFISIENSI TEKNIS PENERAPAN PENGENDALIAN HAMA TERPADU (PPHT) SKALA KAWASAN PADA TANAMAN PADI (Oryza sativa L) DI PADEMAWU BARAT, PAMEKASAN

The application of management integrated pest scale area is a solution in the problems of organisms bully plant scale area and the management of synergism strategy pest by farmers in the same region so contribute real measurable against the program of farming production rice. The application of management integrated plant scale must be efficient area technically in order to get rice production maximum. The farmer can improve production and rice productivity by using the production factors efficiently. The objectives of the research are analyze the production factors which affect the rice farming and analyze of technical efficiency of rice farming. The stochastic frontier is used in this research to analyze technical efficiency. From the frontier analysis will be obtained the factors which give impact to the rice farming organic fertilizer, chemical fertilizers, botanical pesticides and chemical pesticides. The average of technical efficiency is 0,93, it means the farmers are attains 93% of production from the potential production of rices and there is still 7% to improve rice production. Within the value of average technical efficiency is 0,93 will be obtained the income of this farming is Rp. 22.332.779,- per hectare in once growing season. Keywords: intregeted pest management, factor of productions, stochastic frontier, efficiency.