IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i23p6747-d291709.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Government Integrity on Investment Efficiency in Regional Transportation Infrastructure in China

Author

Listed:
  • Qiongzhi Liu

    (School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Luojiashan Hill, Wuhan 430072, Hubei, China)

  • Chan Luo

    (School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Luojiashan Hill, Wuhan 430072, Hubei, China)

Abstract

This paper examines the efficiency of China’s transportation infrastructure investment to explain regional differences in efficiency on the basis of government integrity. First, we used a three-stage DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) model to eliminate the influence of environmental factors and statistical noise and measured the investment efficiency of transportation infrastructure in 31 provinces of China from 2007 to 2017. In addition, we used a truncated regression to calculate the efficiency of infrastructure investment in relation to government integrity to explain the regional differences in investment efficiency. The research results show that, (1) after excluding the environmental and random factors, the adjusted sample investment efficiency value is significantly improved in comparison to the traditional DEA. This shows that environmental factors in various provinces reduce government investment efficiency, which suggests that a traditional DEA model would underestimate investment efficiency. (2) The provinces with higher efficiency in transportation infrastructure investment include, among others, Guangdong, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Tianjin; all are located at the efficiency frontier, while regions with better economic development, such as Beijing and Shanghai, exhibit rather low investment efficiency values. This may be due to the fact that transportation infrastructure investment in these regions has become saturated, resulting in an inevitable decrease in efficiency when investment continues to flow. (3) Low degree of government integrity significantly reduces the efficiency of infrastructure investment. On average, reduction of 1% in government integrity would lead to a decrease of 0.16 percentage points of the technical efficiency of government transportation infrastructure investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Qiongzhi Liu & Chan Luo, 2019. "The Impact of Government Integrity on Investment Efficiency in Regional Transportation Infrastructure in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-13, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:23:p:6747-:d:291709
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/23/6747/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/23/6747/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin Faber, 2014. "Trade Integration, Market Size, and Industrialization: Evidence from China's National Trunk Highway System," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(3), pages 1046-1070.
    2. 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.
    3. Michael Breen & Robert Gillanders, 2012. "Corruption, institutions and regulation," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 263-285, September.
    4. Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Rafael A Portillo & Mr. Edward F Buffie & Ms. Catherine A Pattillo & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2012. "Public Investment, Growth, and Debt Sustainability: Putting together the Pieces," IMF Working Papers 2012/144, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Del Monte, Alfredo & Papagni, Erasmo, 2001. "Public expenditure, corruption, and economic growth: the case of Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-16, March.
    6. Robert Gillanders, 2014. "Corruption and Infrastructure at the Country and Regional Level," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(6), pages 803-819, June.
    7. Luis Carranza & Christian Daude & Angel Melguizo, 2014. "Public infrastructure investment and fiscal sustainability in Latin America: incompatible goals?," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(1), pages 29-50, January.
    8. Mauro, Paolo, 1998. "Corruption and the composition of government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 263-279, June.
    9. Harold Fried & Shelton Schmidt & Suthathip Yaisawarng, 1999. "Incorporating the Operating Environment Into a Nonparametric Measure of Technical Efficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 249-267, November.
    10. M. Emranul Haque & Richard Kneller, 2008. "Public Investment and Growth: The Role of Corruption," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 98, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    11. H. Fried & C. Lovell & S. Schmidt & S. Yaisawarng, 2002. "Accounting for Environmental Effects and Statistical Noise in Data Envelopment Analysis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 157-174, January.
    12. Kyriacou, Andreas P. & Muinelo-Gallo, Leonel & Roca-Sagalés, Oriol, 2019. "The efficiency of transport infrastructure investment and the role of government quality: An empirical analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 93-102.
    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. Radosław Łukasik & Tomasz Neumann, 2022. "Economic and Environmental Aspects of Engine Selection in Cargo Transportation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-18, April.
    2. Chengshuang Sun & Shijie Li & Qianmai Luo & Jinyu Zhao & Zhenqiang Qi, 2023. "Research on the Efficiency of Urban Infrastructure Investment under the Constraint of Carbon Emissions, Taking Provincial Capitals in China as an Example," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-21, June.

    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. Franz R. Hahn, 2007. "Determinants of Bank Efficiency in Europe. Assessing Bank Performance Across Markets," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 31499, April.
    2. Jan Hanousek & Evžen Kočenda, 2011. "Public Investment and Fiscal Performance in the New EU Member States," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 32(1), pages 43-71, March.
    3. Angela Stefania Bergantino & Enrico Musso, 2011. "A Multi-step Approach to Model the Relative Efficiency of European Ports: The Role of Regulation and Other Non-discretionary Factors," Chapters, in: Kevin Cullinane (ed.), International Handbook of Maritime Economics, chapter 18, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Miki Tsutsui & Kaoru Tone, 2007. "Separation of uncontrollable factors and time shift effects from DEA scores," GRIPS Discussion Papers 07-09, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    5. Avkiran, Necmi K. & Rowlands, Terry, 2008. "How to better identify the true managerial performance: State of the art using DEA," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 317-324, April.
    6. Yu, Ming-Miin, 2010. "Assessment of airport performance using the SBM-NDEA model," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 440-452, December.
    7. Yang, Hongliang & Pollitt, Michael, 2009. "Incorporating both undesirable outputs and uncontrollable variables into DEA: The performance of Chinese coal-fired power plants," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(3), pages 1095-1105, September.
    8. Schaper, Philipp, 2017. "Under pressure: how the business environment affects productivity and efficiency of European life insurance companiesAuthor-Name: Eling, Martin," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(3), pages 1082-1094.
    9. Wu, Tai-Hsi & Chen, Ming-Shiun & Yeh, Jin-Yii, 2010. "Measuring the performance of police forces in Taiwan using data envelopment analysis," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 246-254, August.
    10. Sahoo, Nihar R. & Mohapatra, Pratap K.J. & Mahanty, Biswajit, 2018. "Examining the process of normalising the energy-efficiency targets for coal-based thermal power sector in India," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 342-352.
    11. Wang, Zhaohua & Liu, Qiang & Zhang, Bin, 2022. "What kinds of building energy-saving retrofit projects should be preferred? Efficiency evaluation with three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    12. Wang, Zhaohua & Li, Yi & Wang, Ke & Huang, Zhimin, 2017. "Environment-adjusted operational performance evaluation of solar photovoltaic power plants: A three stage efficiency analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1153-1162.
    13. Walheer, Barnabé & He, Ming, 2020. "Technical efficiency and technology gap of the manufacturing industry in China: Does firm ownership matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    14. Beniamina Margari & Fabrizio Erbetta & Carmelo Petraglia & Massimiliano Piacenza, 2007. "Regulatory and environmental effects on public transit efficiency: a mixed DEA-SFA approach," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 131-151, October.
    15. Cinzia Daraio & Léopold Simar, 2005. "Introducing Environmental Variables in Nonparametric Frontier Models: a Probabilistic Approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 93-121, September.
    16. Cordero Ferrera, Jose Manuel & Alonso Morán, Edurne & Nuño Solís, Roberto & Orueta, Juan F. & Souto Arce, Regina, 2013. "Efficiency assessment of primary care providers: A conditional nonparametric approach," MPRA Paper 51926, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Hall, Maximilian J.B. & Kenjegalieva, Karligash A. & Simper, Richard, 2012. "Environmental factors affecting Hong Kong banking: A post-Asian financial crisis efficiency analysis," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 184-201.
    18. Haoran Zhao & Huiru Zhao & Sen Guo, 2018. "Operational Efficiency of Chinese Provincial Electricity Grid Enterprises: An Evaluation Employing a Three-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, September.
    19. J M Cordero-Ferrera & F Pedraja-Chaparro & D Santín-González, 2010. "Enhancing the inclusion of non-discretionary inputs in DEA," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 61(4), pages 574-584, April.
    20. Yakira Fernández-Torres & Milagros Gutiérrez-Fernández & Julián Ramajo-Hernández, 2018. "Business Regulation And Economic Growth: The Indirect Effect Of Corruption In Latin America And The Caribbean," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(01), pages 1-22, March.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:23:p:6747-:d:291709. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.