IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i11p6429-d569354.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Governance of the Korean Freight Transportation Industry from an Environmental Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Yongrok Choi

    (Department of International Trade, Inha University, Incheon 22212, Korea)

  • Haohao Wang

    (Department of International Trade, Inha University, Incheon 22212, Korea)

  • Fan Yang

    (Program in Industrial Security Governance, Inha University, Incheon 22212, Korea)

  • Hyoungsuk Lee

    (Business School, Shandong University, Weihai 264209, China)

Abstract

The transportation industry is one of the major sectors for air pollution. In particular, the freight transportation sector possesses the biggest share of air pollution in South Korea. Therefore, it is required to evaluate current environmental performance of this sector and predict regulation impact on the local economy for a sustainable future. Based on the sustainable governance, each local government should take actions or change the paradigm of the regulatory policies. Thus, this study examines the environmental performance of the freight transportation industry with air pollution of PM 2 .5 and NO x in 16 Korean local governments, based on the non-radial directional distance function (NDDF). On average, the freight transportation sector shows very low performance with a high potential value of 0.649. Furthermore, no significant uptrend was witnessed during the sample period (2012 to 2017), implying a lack of sustainable governance. Some local governments such as Seoul (0.9301) and Busan (0.9709) show high efficiency, and Gwangju shows a slow but increasing trend, while most of other cities are very low in their environmental performance of freight transportation industries. Even Seoul and Busan may not maintain their sustainable performance, because outperforming high sales revenue in these cities could lead to high efficiency even with high levels of aggravating air pollution. Therefore, it is meaningful to empirically test the sustainable feasibility in terms of regulatory costs, reflecting the opportunity costs to select increased regulation toward a sustainable, higher environment-friendly efficiency. Environmental regulation causes very low, negligible costs in most of the local governments, except Seoul, implying that a more regulatory regime will bring in the sustainable governance of the environmental efficiency (Porter hypothesis) for the freight transportation sector for these local governments. However, Seoul will endure a heavy economic burden if heavier environmental regulations are posed on its freight transport sector. Stepwise and fine tuning of regulations is required for Seoul. In contrast to Seoul, Incheon needs drastic reformation since it shows low efficiency with low regulatory cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Yongrok Choi & Haohao Wang & Fan Yang & Hyoungsuk Lee, 2021. "Sustainable Governance of the Korean Freight Transportation Industry from an Environmental Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-14, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:6429-:d:569354
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6429/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6429/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chang, Young-Tae & Zhang, Ning & Danao, Denise & Zhang, Nan, 2013. "Environmental efficiency analysis of transportation system in China: A non-radial DEA approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 277-283.
    2. Young-Tae Chang & Nan Zhang, 2017. "Environmental efficiency of transportation sectors in China and Korea," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 19(1), pages 68-93, March.
    3. Weibin Lin & Bin Chen & Lina Xie & Haoran Pan, 2015. "Estimating Energy Consumption of Transport Modes in China Using DEA," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-15, April.
    4. Lee, Myunghun & Zhang, Ning, 2012. "Technical efficiency, shadow price of carbon dioxide emissions, and substitutability for energy in the Chinese manufacturing industries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1492-1497.
    5. Fare, R. & Grosskopf, S. & Pasurka, C., 1986. "Effects on relative efficiency in electric power generation due to environmental controls," Resources and Energy, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 167-184, June.
    6. Zhang, Ning & Choi, Yongrok, 2013. "Total-factor carbon emission performance of fossil fuel power plants in China: A metafrontier non-radial Malmquist index analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 549-559.
    7. Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Pasurka, Carl A., 2007. "Environmental production functions and environmental directional distance functions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1055-1066.
    8. Hashem Omrani & Khatereh Shafaat & Arash Alizadeh, 2019. "Integrated data envelopment analysis and cooperative game for evaluating energy efficiency of transportation sector: a case of Iran," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 274(1), pages 471-499, March.
    9. Hong-Oanh Nguyen & Hong-Van Nguyen & Young-Tae Chang & Anthony T. H. Chin & Jose Tongzon, 2016. "Measuring port efficiency using bootstrapped DEA: the case of Vietnamese ports," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(5), pages 644-659, July.
    10. Zhaohua Wang & Chao Feng, 2014. "The impact and economic cost of environmental regulation on energy utilization in China," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(27), pages 3362-3376, September.
    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. Jiekun Song & Rui Chen & Xiaoping Ma, 2021. "Collaborative Allocation of Energy Consumption, Air Pollutants and CO 2 Emissions in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-17, August.
    2. Zhiqiang Zhu & Xuechi Zhang & Mengqing Xue & Yaoyao Song, 2023. "Eco-Efficiency and Its Evolutionary Change under Regulatory Constraints: A Case Study of Chinese Transportation Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Yongrok Choi, 2021. "Energy Efficiency and Urban Climate Adaption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-7, July.

    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. 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.
    2. Boban Djordjević & Evelin Krmac, 2019. "Evaluation of Energy-Environment Efficiency of European Transport Sectors: Non-Radial DEA and TOPSIS Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-27, July.
    3. Quintano, Claudio & Mazzocchi, Paolo & Rocca, Antonella, 2021. "Evaluation of the eco-efficiency of territorial districts with seaport economic activities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Li, Ke & Lin, Boqiang, 2015. "Measuring green productivity growth of Chinese industrial sectors during 1998–2011," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 279-295.
    5. Ning Zhang & Jong-Dae Kim, 2014. "Measuring sustainability by Energy Efficiency Analysis for Korean Power Companies: A Sequential Slacks-Based Efficiency Measure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-13, March.
    6. Xian’En Wang & Shimeng Wang & Xipan Wang & Wenbo Li & Junnian Song & Haiyan Duan & Shuo Wang, 2019. "The Assessment of Carbon Performance under the Region-Sector Perspective based on the Nonparametric Estimation: A Case Study of the Northern Province in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-23, October.
    7. Zhang, Ning & Wei, Xiao, 2015. "Dynamic total factor carbon emissions performance changes in the Chinese transportation industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 409-420.
    8. Zhang, Ning & Zhou, Peng & Kung, Chih-Chun, 2015. "Total-factor carbon emission performance of the Chinese transportation industry: A bootstrapped non-radial Malmquist index analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 584-593.
    9. Zhang, Ning & Wang, Bing & Chen, Zhongfei, 2016. "Carbon emissions reductions and technology gaps in the world's factory, 1990–2012," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 28-37.
    10. Zhang, Ning & Kong, Fanbin & Choi, Yongrok & Zhou, P., 2014. "The effect of size-control policy on unified energy and carbon efficiency for Chinese fossil fuel power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 193-200.
    11. Wang, Zhaohua & Feng, Chao, 2015. "Sources of production inefficiency and productivity growth in China: A global data envelopment analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 380-389.
    12. Zhang, Ning & Choi, Yongrok, 2013. "Total-factor carbon emission performance of fossil fuel power plants in China: A metafrontier non-radial Malmquist index analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 549-559.
    13. Liu, Haiying & Owens, Katharine A. & Yang, Ke & Zhang, Chunhong, 2020. "Pollution abatement costs and technical changes under different environmental regulations," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Chih Chen, 2015. "Assessing the Pollutant Abatement Cost of Greenhouse Gas Emission Regulation: A Case Study of Taiwan’s Freeway Bus Service Industry," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 61(4), pages 477-495, August.
    15. 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.
    16. Zhang, Qi & Gu, Baihe & Zhang, Haiying & Ji, Qiang, 2023. "Emission reduction mode of China's provincial transportation sector: Based on “Energy+” carbon efficiency evaluation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    17. Zhang, Ning & Zhao, Yu & Wang, Na, 2022. "Is China's energy policy effective for power plants? Evidence from the 12th Five-Year Plan energy saving targets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    18. Juan Du & Yongrui Duan & Jinghua Xu, 2019. "The infeasible problem of Malmquist–Luenberger index and its application on China’s environmental total factor productivity," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 278(1), pages 235-253, July.
    19. Surender Kumar & Rakesh Kumar Jain, 2021. "Cost of CO2 emission mitigation and its decomposition: evidence from coal-fired thermal power sector in India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 693-717, August.
    20. Anyu Yu & Guangshe Jia & Jianxin You & Puwei Zhang, 2018. "Estimation of PM 2.5 Concentration Efficiency and Potential Public Mortality Reduction in Urban China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-19, 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:13:y:2021:i:11:p:6429-:d:569354. 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.