IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v292y2021i3p996-1003.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the effects of undesirable outputs on the efficiency of production units

Author

Listed:
  • Kao, Chiang
  • Hwang, Shiuh-Nan

Abstract

The data envelopment analysis technique produces higher efficiency scores for the assessed decision making units (DMUs) when more input/output factors are considered. This feature generates an intuitively unreasonable result in which the efficiency of a DMU measured considering the accompanying undesirable outputs is greater than or equal to that measured without considering them. In order to obtain a reasonable measure of efficiency, this paper proposes a concept for determining the minimum amount of undesirable outputs that a DMU is allowed to generate based on the assertion of weak disposability, and the results are used to construct the production frontier. The efficiency of the DMUs measured from this frontier can be decomposed into two parts, one of which shows the efficiency of consuming the observed inputs to produce the observed desirable outputs and the other of which, a reduction factor, shows the effect of producing excessive amounts of undesirable outputs on efficiency. A case of thirty paper mills taken from the literature is used to illustrate this idea. The results are helpful for DMU decision-makers to identify sources of inefficiency and for the government to formulate standards for generating allowable amounts of undesirable outputs.

Suggested Citation

  • Kao, Chiang & Hwang, Shiuh-Nan, 2021. "Measuring the effects of undesirable outputs on the efficiency of production units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 292(3), pages 996-1003.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:292:y:2021:i:3:p:996-1003
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2020.11.026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221720309723
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2020.11.026?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Song, Malin & An, Qingxian & Zhang, Wei & Wang, Zeya & Wu, Jie, 2012. "Environmental efficiency evaluation based on data envelopment analysis: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 4465-4469.
    2. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2012. "DEA radial and non-radial models for unified efficiency under natural and managerial disposability: Theoretical extension by strong complementary slackness conditions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 700-713.
    3. Gongbing Bi & Yan Luo & Jingjing Ding & Liang Liang, 2015. "Environmental performance analysis of Chinese industry from a slacks-based perspective," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 228(1), pages 65-80, May.
    4. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna, 2004. "Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation: Comment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 242-245, August.
    5. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    6. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2006. "Slacks-based efficiency measures for modeling environmental performance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 111-118, November.
    7. S You & H Yan, 2011. "A new approach in modelling undesirable output in DEA model☆," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(12), pages 2146-2156, December.
    8. Jeanneaux, Philippe & Latruffe, Laure, 2016. "Modelling pollution-generating technologies in performance benchmarking: Recent developments, limits and future prospects in the nonparametric frameworkAuthor-Name: Dakpo, K. Hervé," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(2), pages 347-359.
    9. Murty, Sushama & Robert Russell, R. & Levkoff, Steven B., 2012. "On modeling pollution-generating technologies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 117-135.
    10. Chiang Kao, 2017. "Network Data Envelopment Analysis," International Series in Operations Research and Management Science, Springer, number 978-3-319-31718-2, December.
    11. Li, Mingquan & Wang, Qi, 2014. "International environmental efficiency differences and their determinants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 411-420.
    12. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2008. "A survey of data envelopment analysis in energy and environmental studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-18, August.
    13. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    14. W. Liu & W. Meng & X. Li & D. Zhang, 2010. "DEA models with undesirable inputs and outputs," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 177-194, January.
    15. Fare, Rolf, et al, 1989. "Multilateral Productivity Comparisons When Some Outputs Are Undesirable: A Nonparametric Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(1), pages 90-98, February.
    16. Kao, Chiang, 2020. "Measuring efficiency in a general production possibility set allowing for negative data," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 282(3), pages 980-988.
    17. Tone, Kaoru, 2001. "A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 498-509, May.
    18. Scheel, Holger, 2001. "Undesirable outputs in efficiency valuations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 400-410, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shen, Zhiyang & Bai, Kaixuan & Hong, Tianyang & Balezentis, Tomas, 2021. "Evaluation of carbon shadow price within a non-parametric meta-frontier framework: The case of OECD, ASEAN and BRICS," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 299(C).
    2. Omrani, Hashem & Yang, Zijiang & Karbasian, Arash & Teplova, Tamara, 2023. "Combination of top-down and bottom-up DEA models using PCA: A two-stage network DEA with shared input and undesirable output for evaluation of the road transport sector," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. Liu, Fangmei & Li, Li & Ye, Bin & Qin, Quande, 2023. "A novel stochastic semi-parametric frontier-based three-stage DEA window model to evaluate China's industrial green economic efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chiang Kao & Shiuh-Nan Hwang, 2019. "Efficiency evaluation in the presence of undesirable outputs: the most favorable shadow price approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 278(1), pages 5-16, July.
    2. Barnabé Walheer, 2020. "Output, input, and undesirable output interconnections in data envelopment analysis: convexity and returns-to-scale," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 284(1), pages 447-467, January.
    3. Yigang Wei & Yan Li & Meiyu Wu & Yingbo Li, 2020. "Progressing sustainable development of “the Belt and Road countries”: Estimating environmental efficiency based on the Super‐slack‐based measure model," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 521-539, July.
    4. Jie Wu & Xiang Lu & Dong Guo & Liang Liang, 2017. "Slacks-Based Efficiency Measurements with Undesirable Outputs in Data Envelopment Analysis," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(04), pages 1005-1021, July.
    5. Wang, Ke & Wei, Yi-Ming & Huang, Zhimin, 2018. "Environmental efficiency and abatement efficiency measurements of China's thermal power industry: A data envelopment analysis based materials balance approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(1), pages 35-50.
    6. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    7. Xiang Ji & Jiasen Sun & Qunwei Wang & Qianqian Yuan, 2019. "Revealing Energy Over-Consumption and Pollutant Over-Emission Behind GDP: A New Multi-criteria Sustainable Measure," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 1391-1421, December.
    8. Ke Wang & Yi-Ming Wei & Zhimin Huang, 2017. "Environmental efficiency and abatement efficiency measurements of China¡¯s thermal power industry: A data envelopment analysis based materials balance approach," CEEP-BIT Working Papers 108, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEP), Beijing Institute of Technology.
    9. Kao, Chiang & Hwang, Shiuh-Nan, 2023. "Separating the effect of undesirable outputs generation from the inefficiency of desirable outputs production in efficiency measurement," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(3), pages 1097-1102.
    10. César Salazar & Roberto Cárdenas-Retamal & Marcela Jaime, 2023. "Environmental efficiency in the salmon industry—an exploratory analysis around the 2007 ISA virus outbreak and subsequent regulations in Chile," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(8), pages 8107-8135, August.
    11. Zhou, Haibo & Yang, Yi & Chen, Yao & Zhu, Joe, 2018. "Data envelopment analysis application in sustainability: The origins, development and future directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(1), pages 1-16.
    12. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2008. "A survey of data envelopment analysis in energy and environmental studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-18, August.
    13. Benjamin Hampf, 2018. "Measuring inefficiency in the presence of bad outputs: Does the disposability assumption matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 101-127, February.
    14. Noor Ramli & Susila Munisamy & Behrouz Arabi, 2013. "Scale directional distance function and its application to the measurement of eco-efficiency in the manufacturing sector," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 211(1), pages 381-398, December.
    15. Ma-Lin Song & Ron Fisher & Jian-Lin Wang & Lian-Biao Cui, 2018. "Environmental performance evaluation with big data: theories and methods," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 270(1), pages 459-472, November.
    16. Liu, John S. & Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Lu, Wen-Min, 2016. "Research fronts in data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 33-45.
    17. Lu, Ching-Cheng & Chiu, Yung-Ho & Shyu, Ming-Kuang & Lee, Jen-Hui, 2013. "Measuring CO2 emission efficiency in OECD countries: Application of the Hybrid Efficiency model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 130-135.
    18. Ma-Lin Song & Yuan-Xiang Zhou & Rong-Rong Zhang & Ron Fisher, 2017. "Environmental efficiency evaluation with left–right fuzzy numbers," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 697-714, October.
    19. Jeanneaux, Philippe & Latruffe, Laure, 2016. "Modelling pollution-generating technologies in performance benchmarking: Recent developments, limits and future prospects in the nonparametric frameworkAuthor-Name: Dakpo, K. Hervé," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(2), pages 347-359.
    20. Abad, Arnaud & Briec, Walter, 2019. "On the axiomatic of pollution-generating technologies: Non-parametric production analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(1), pages 377-390.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:292:y:2021:i:3:p:996-1003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.