On modeling pollution-generating technologies

Sushama Murty (), R. Russell and Steven Levkoff
Additional contact information
R. Russell: Department of Economics, University of California
Steven Levkoff: Department of Economics, University of California

No 1101, Discussion Papers from University of Exeter, Department of Economics

Abstract: Distinguishing between intended ("good") production and unintended or residual ("bad") generation, we introduce the concept of by-production. In by-production technologies, pollution is an output that satisfies a "costly disposability" assumption and violates standard free disposability with respect to pollution-causing inputs. Our approach therefore differs substantially from standard approaches to modeling pollution-generating technologies. We show how by-production can be modeled using data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods. With an electric power plant database, we illustrate shortcomings under by-production of two popular efficiency indexes: the hyperbolic index and the directional distance function. We propose and implement an alternative efficiency index with superior properties.

Keywords: pollution-generating technologies; free disposability; weak disposability; data envelopment analysis; environmental and technical efficiency measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D20 D24 D62 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eff, nep-ene and nep-env
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://exetereconomics.github.io/RePEc/dpapers/DP1101.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: On modeling pollution-generating technologies (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:exe:wpaper:1101

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University of Exeter, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sebastian Kripfganz ().