Showing papers on "Inefficiency published in 2020"
TL;DR: Based on the non-radial directional distance function of the Data Envelopment Analysis model, the authors used the meta-frontier method to measure the total-factor energy efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 1997 to 2016.
110 citations
TL;DR: Li et al. as discussed by the authors used panel data of 30 provinces between 1997 and 2016 in China, the measurement of energy efficiency is disentangled, and the effects of urbanization on different types of energy efficiencies are explored.
70 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employ a stochastic production frontier model to estimate household-level food waste via a food acquisition data and find that healthier diets and higher income lead to more household food waste, whereas lower household food security, food assistance program participation, and larger household sizes are associated with less food waste.
Abstract: Measuring food waste at the individual household level has been nearly impossible because comprehensive, current data on uneaten food do not exist. By using food acquisition data, this article employs a new approach to estimating household‐level food waste via a stochastic production frontier model in which food waste is identified as input inefficiency. For households in our data, the average household wastes 31.9% of the food it buys, and this figure, using survey weights, translates to annual U.S. consumer‐level food waste valued at $240 billion. In addition, by accommodating heterogeneous wasting behavior, we find that healthier diets and higher income lead to more household food waste, whereas lower household food security, food‐assistance program participation, and larger household sizes are associated with less food waste.
67 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a model for financing e-learning has been developed that is applicable to Russian realities, based on the balance between demand (global politics, economics, and principles of sustainable development) and supply (sources of direct financing).
Abstract: E-learning brings new dimensions to traditional education. This especially affects countries that, due to many factors, have historically been considered the “talent pool” for the world community. In this study, a model for financing e-education has been developed that is applicable to Russian realities. The model was built around the balance between demand (global politics, economics, and principles of sustainable development) and supply (sources of direct financing). As a result, a key challenge of improving the e-learning financing methodology and models, specifically the efficiency of government spending and private investing, demands the use of new approaches and mechanisms. To improve e-learning financing, a clear understanding of the applied purpose of public and private means is required. Responsibilities for the e-learning outcome of institutions that receive financing are linked to their status. An unclear understanding of these issues is more likely associated with the issue of transparency of financing than with inefficiency. The proposed model allows transforming the “standards” of financing both in the field of e-education and Russian education in general and presents a new vision of participants’ interaction in the educational process, taking into account a set of restrictions and market features.
65 citations
TL;DR: A multi net-put efficiency and conventional efficiency approach is presented to analyze non-renewable energy and renewable energy efficiency towards economic development and environmental sustainability nexus to show that the efficiency nexus of conventional energy is significant and higher than renewable energy for the evaluated period.
57 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how improvements in data processing shape information choices, trading strategies and market outcomes and find that unbiased technological change can explain a marketwide shift in data collection and trading strategies.
Abstract: "Big data" financial technology raises concerns about market inefficiency. A common concern is that the technology might induce traders to extract others' information, rather than to produce information themselves. We allow agents to choose how much they learn about future asset values or about others' demands, and we explore how improvements in data processing shape these information choices, trading strategies and market outcomes. Our main insight is that unbiased technological change can explain a market-wide shift in data collection and trading strategies. However, in the long run, as data processing technology becomes increasingly advanced, both types of data continue to be processed. Two competing forces keep the data economy in balance: data resolve investment risk, but future data create risk. The efficiency results that follow from these competing forces upend two pieces of common wisdom: our results offer a new take on what makes prices informative and whether trades typically deemed liquidity-providing actually make markets more resilient.
56 citations
TL;DR: Based on an improved non-radial directional distance function, the authors in this article constructed a new meta-frontier total-factor carbon emission efficiency index by considering technology heterogeneity.
56 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluated the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus from 2005 to 2017 in 30 provinces across China using a multiplicative environmental data envelopment analysis (ME-DEA) model.
55 citations
TL;DR: The results show that the multiplicative model is more reasonable in calculating regional energy and environmental efficiency than the traditional DEA model and the networked analytical structure can give policymakers more detailed analysis results than single process method.
54 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the multifractality, long-memory process, and efficiency hypothesis of six major cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, Dash, Litecoin, and Ripple) using the time-rolling MF-DFA approach.
47 citations
TL;DR: The erratic price behavior and inefficiency in the crypto markets offer possibility to examine the behavioral aspects in cryptocurrency prices as discussed by the authors. But, the cryptocurrency market is dominat[1].
Abstract: The erratic price behavior and inefficiency in the crypto markets offer possibility to examine the behavioral aspects in cryptocurrency prices. Further, the cryptocurrency market is dominat...
TL;DR: This study's results suggest that in order to achieve the same health outcomes, national healthcare systems need to use public and private health resources more effectively and efficiently.
Abstract: Aim This study aimed to measure the healthcare system efficiency of 36 African countries and to compare efficiency levels between countries. Method Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to evaluate efficiency. The input variables employed within the scope of DEA consisted of the proportion of total health expenditures in the gross domestic product (HE); the number of physicians (PHY), nurses (NUR) and hospital beds (BN) per 1000 people; the unemployment rate (UN); and the Gini coefficient (Gini). The study's output variables were life expectancy at birth and 1/(infant mortality rate). After DEA, the variables affecting the performance of national healthcare systems were identified using a Tobit regression model. Results According to DEA results, 21 (58.33%) of 36 African healthcare systems were found to be efficient. Among the efficient countries, Senegal was the country most referenced for inefficient countries. According to the Tobit regression analysis results, the number of nurses per 1000 people and Gini coefficient variables statistically significantly affected the inefficiency of national healthcare systems. Conclusion This study's results suggest that in order to achieve the same health outcomes, national healthcare systems need to use public and private health resources more effectively and efficiently. By assessing the efficiency of countries’ healthcare systems and health services through international comparison, effectiveness and efficiency can be ensured within these systems.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors applied a parametric technique to estimate technical efficiency in Africa's agricultural sector under heterogeneous technologies, while separating unobserved country-specific heterogeneities from transient and persistent technical efficiency.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a general equilibrium model of a productive economy with negative externalities and derived the ESG fund's optimal policy in terms of industry allocation and pollution limits imposed to portfolio companies.
Abstract: This paper develops a general equilibrium model of a productive economy with negative externalities. Investors are not willing to accept lower returns than their best investment alternatives and entrepreneurs maximize profits. If capital markets are subject to a search friction, an ESG fund can raise assets and improve social welfare despite the selfishness of all agents. The presence of the ESG fund forces companies to partially internalize externalities. We derive the fund's optimal policy in terms of industry allocation and pollution limits imposed to portfolio companies. The fund prioritizes investments in companies where (i) the inefficiency induced by the externality is particularly acute and (ii) the capital search friction is strong. We also show that the ESG fund can take advantage of the supply-chain network: It can amplify its impact by imposing restrictions on the suppliers of the firms where it invests.
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper introduced a global multi-hierarchy meta-frontier data envelopment analysis approach to analyze the dynamic performance of CO2 emissions and to estimate the current CO 2 emissions inefficiency and reduction potential in the manufacturing industry of China's 30 provinces, which are separated into three components, namely, structural characteristics, technology gaps, and resource allocation levels.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented an energy efficiency assessment of 46 African countries and analyzed possible bidirectional relationship between energy efficiency and economic development within a three-stage framework, where the first stage measured energy efficiency within a total factor framework using the slack-based measure with undesirable output and sub-regional comparisons are done.
Abstract: This paper presents an energy efficiency assessment of 46 African countries and analyzes possible bidirectional relationship between energy efficiency and economic development within a three-stage framework. In the first stage, energy efficiency is measured within a total factor framework using the slack-based measure with undesirable output and sub-regional comparisons are done. The second stage assesses the determinants of energy efficiency in Africa by way of a bootstrapped truncated regression. The third stage tests the reverse causal relationship between energy efficiency and economic development using 2-stage least squares. The results showed African countries to be on average, 56% energy efficient within the study period. Other African sub-regions could adopt the energy efficiency policies of North Africa as benchmark to improve energy efficiency. Economic development and technological progress are found to have significant positive effects on energy efficiency of African countries, while higher energy prices lead to higher inefficiency. Also, a bi-causal relationship is found to exist between total factor energy efficiency and economic development, giving support to the concept of sustainable development and confirming the International Energy Agency’s assertion on the positive macroeconomic impacts of energy efficiency. African countries are therefore, encouraged to invest in energy efficiency technologies and policies to drive sustainable economic development.
TL;DR: To evaluate China's CLUEE and CLUETFP from 1997 to 2017, the nonseparable hybrid model with undesirable outputs (NSH-U) and the non separable hybrid Malmquist (NSh-M) productivity index was used.
TL;DR: A meta-frontier analysis framework is introduced into a cross-efficiency method to develop a new efficiency evaluation method and the cross-evaluation strategy is introduced to ensure the stability of the optimal solution.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate regional eco-efficiency patterns in Europe, paying particular attention to territorial heterogeneity, and assess the comparative evolution of ecoefficiency in 282 European regions between 2006 and 2014, and estimate the technology and conditional efficiency gaps that regions display considering their dominant territorial features.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors measure the relative importance of key factors that influence the efficiency of household investment decisions and find that both for men and women, their spouse's access to information does not affect efficiency.
Abstract: We conduct an experiment to measure the relative importance of key factors that influence the efficiency of household investment decisions. We find that, both for men and women, their spouse's access to information does not affect efficiency. However, they are willing to sacrifice much efficiency for greater personal control over household income. Intriguingly, even when spouses' control over household income is exogenously assigned, inefficiency persists: As a wife's assigned share increases, husbands undercut their own income to reduce hers. This self-destructive and spiteful behavior is best explained by non-economic factors such as identity, seldom emphasized in mainstream household economic models.
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TL;DR: This paper opts to mitigate the energy-inefficiency of the Blockchain Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm by rationally repurposing the power spent during the mining process, and is the first to considerably improve the energy consumption of the original PoW algorithm.
Abstract: This paper opts to mitigate the energy-inefficiency of the Blockchain Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm by rationally repurposing the power spent during the mining process. The original PoW mining scheme is designed to consider one block at a time and assign a reward to the first place winner of a computation race. To reduce the mining-related energy consumption, we propose to compensate the computation effort of the runner(s)-up of a mining round, by granting them exclusivity of solving the upcoming block in the next round. This will considerably reduce the number of competing nodes in the next round and consequently, the consumed energy. Our proposed scheme divides time into epochs, where each comprises two mining rounds; in the first one, all network nodes can participate in the mining process, whereas in the second round only runners-up can take part. Thus, the overall mining energy consumption can be reduced to nearly $50\%$. To the best of our knowledge, our proposed scheme is the first to considerably improve the energy consumption of the original PoW algorithm. Our analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of our scheme in reducing energy consumption, the probability of fork occurrences, the level of mining centralization presented in the original PoW algorithm, and the effect of transaction censorship attack.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the development of city commercial banks across China has alleviated the constraints from China's domestic financial-market inefficiency on the export activity of domestic private firms.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that impact investing decisions may be prone to behavioral factors that limit their outcome efficiency, and they find that individuals systematically fail to choose investment portfolios that achieve financial and social outcomes efficiently and thereby waste opportunities for value creation.
Abstract: Research Summary The emerging practice of “impact investing” optimizes both financial and social outcomes, and thus promises to support hybrid organizations that simultaneously pursue financial and social goals. We argue, however, that impact investing decisions may be prone to behavioral factors that limit their outcome efficiency. In a portfolio allocation task designed to reflect the essential features of an impact investing decision, we find across a range of scenarios that individuals systematically fail to choose investment portfolios that achieve financial and social outcomes efficiently and thereby waste opportunities for value creation. We further show in online and in‐person experiments that outcome inefficiency is related to “categorical cognition”: suppression of categorical labels on investment options increases efficiency. Managerial Summary The “impact investing” approach promises to encourage greater financial investments in hybrid organizations that pursue a combination of financial and social goals. We experimentally demonstrate a challenge of this approach: People struggle to identify portfolios of investments that simultaneously optimize across financial and social outcomes. This is partly due to “categorical cognition”: a natural tendency to view investments in terms of known categories rather than the actual outcomes they produce. Our experiments show that removing the labels “for‐profit company,” “charity,” and “social enterprise” from investment options—thus making it more difficult to think about them categorically—increases outcome‐efficient allocations. We therefore show that realizing the full potential of impact investing will require that investors transcend conventional thinking about business and charity as separate domains.
TL;DR: The results indicated that improvements in environmental efficiency significantly ameliorated PM2.5 pollution in China from 2003 to 2013, which implies that PM 2.5 control is a complex system and requires a comprehensive policy mix.
TL;DR: In this article, the level and determinants of technical efficiency of smallholder farmers using the true fixed effects (TFE) model were assessed using four rounds of panel data from the Ethiopian rural household survey (ERHS).
Abstract: The efficient use of inputs is indispensable in many developing countries, such as Ethiopia. This study assesses the level and determinants of technical efficiency of smallholder farmers using the true fixed effects (TFE) model. The TFE model separates inefficiency from unobserved heterogeneity. Empirical data come from four rounds of panel data (1994–2009) from the Ethiopian rural household survey (ERHS). A one-step maximum likelihood estimator was employed to estimate the Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function and factors influencing technical efficiency. The results indicated that the major variables affecting technical efficiency are policy responsive, albeit to varying degrees: education of the household head, family size, farm size, land fragmentation, land quality, credit use, extension service, off-farm employment, and crop share. The analyses also identify variables amenable to policy changes in the production function: labor, traction power, farm size, seeds, and fertilizer. The mean household-level efficiency for the surveyed farmers is 0.59, indicating that farmers could improve technical efficiency. This implies that smallholder farms in Ethiopia can reduce the input requirement of producing the average output by 41% if their operations become technically efficient. This study recommends that the above policy variables be considered to make Ethiopian smallholder farmers more efficient.
TL;DR: A high level of hospital inefficiency is pointed to, mostly associated with small size and distributed across all Brazilian states, and many of these hospitals could increase production and reduce inputs to achieve higher efficiency standards.
Abstract: This paper assesses the economic efficiency of Brazilian general hospitals that provide inpatient care for the Unified Health System (SUS). We combined data envelopment analysis (DEA) and spatial analysis to identify predominant clusters, measure hospital inefficiency and analyze the spatial pattern of inefficiency throughout the country. Our findings pointed to a high level of hospital inefficiency, mostly associated with small size and distributed across all Brazilian states. Many of these hospitals could increase production and reduce inputs to achieve higher efficiency standards. These findings suggest room for optimization, but inequalities in access and the matching of demand and supply must be carefully considered in any attempt to reorganize the hospital system in Brazil.
TL;DR: The present research helps in reaching governmental policies based not only on the internal dynamics of carbon inequality among different transportation modes, but also in terms of macro-economic impacts on the Chinese transportation sector.
TL;DR: The results documented that the central region of China needs to accelerate logistics reforms and use its location advantage of its location to form an organic connection with the eastern and western regions to improve China's competitive advantage.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors determined the deadweight loss in public spending on the preservation of environment quality, including national expenditures, and the Common Agricultural Policy in individual EU countries between the years of 2005-2016.
TL;DR: It is concluded that increase implementation of climate change adaptation strategies could enhance rice productivity and technical efficiency of rice farmers through timely access to climate change information and other related institutional support.