Measuring unified efficiency of fossil fuel power plants across provinces in China: An analysis based on non-radial directional distance functions

Aijun Li (), Aizhen Zhang, Huijie Huang and Xin Yao

Energy, 2018, vol. 152, issue C, 549-561

Abstract: The static unified efficiency indices are not good at tracking unified efficiency changes across time. To this end, this study adopts Meta-frontier Malmquist unified efficiency indices (MMUEI). These dynamic indices have three important features: (1) They provide us with accurate and credible results of efficiency changes originated from a time effect. (2) They can measure unified efficiency resulting from different benchmark frontiers (i.e. group and meta frontiers). (3) Through these decomposed indicators, this study can uncover and identify the major sources of unified efficiency changes. As an empirical application, the above indices are utilized for examining fossil fuel power plants in 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2012, where all provinces are grouped into two groups. The main findings are summarized as follows. Firstly, MMUEI provide new valuable information relative to UEIs. The time paths of MMUEI form M-shaped curve for both coastal and inland regions. Secondly, different UEIs measure unified efficiency from different perspectives and thus have differentiated time paths. Finally, there are substantial provincial differences in terms of either MMUEI or UEIs, resulting from provincial variations. In the short run, the provinces with large potential should improve unified efficiency measures by “catching-up”.

Keywords: Unified efficiency; Data envelopment analysis (DEA); Meta-frontier non-radial directional distance functions; Group heterogeneity; Environmental assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218305735
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:energy:v:152:y:2018:i:c:p:549-561

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.03.164

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().