International Environmental Efficiency Trends and the Impact of the Paris Agreement

Wen-Chi Yang, Wen-Min Lu and Alagu Perumal Ramasamy
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Wen-Chi Yang: Department of Diplomacy, College of International Affairs, National Chengchi University, Taipei 11605, Taiwan
Wen-Min Lu: Department of International Business Administration, College of Business, Chinese Culture University, Taipei 111396, Taiwan
Alagu Perumal Ramasamy: Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Loyola College, Chennai 600034, India

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-16

Abstract: This study estimates the environmental efficiency of 150 economies during the period of 2010–2017 to understand the environmental efficiency trend worldwide. This research adopts the meta-Malmquist approach to compare and capture the dynamic change in environmental efficiency among different income groups. The empirical results indicate that among the four income groups, only the low-income group suffers from regression in terms of environmental efficiency, while the high-income group achieves the greatest progress. For the high-income group, the source of improvement originates from the frontier shift rather than from efficiency change. By contrast, the improvement of the lower-income groups results from the catching-up effect. With regard to the effect of the Paris Agreement, only the lower middle-income group exhibits a statistical difference between the two periods, and environmental efficiency increases after the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The fight against global warming cannot succeed by relying only on specific countries. The whole world must cooperate and improve together, and thus, additional help must be devoted to the low-income group. The statistical results support that differences exist in terms of environmental efficiency among the four income groups. In particular, the low-income group is deteriorating.

Keywords: environmental efficiency; Paris Agreement; data envelopment analysis; meta-Malmquist; climate change; common but differentiated responsibilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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