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Because the liquor industry is an important industry in China, alcohol companies have greater social responsibilities when upgrading their production processes to improve efficiencies. Two main data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods have been used for efficiency analyses: radial models, such as CCR (Charnes, Cooper, Rhodes) and BCC (Banker, Charnes, Cooper) and non-radial methods such as SBM (slacks-based model); however, both have disadvantages. The radial DEA model ignores the non-radial slacks and the non-radial DEA model ignores the characteristics of the same proportion in the radial DEA model. Therefore, this research used a dynamic two-stage directional distance function (DDF) model to analyse the production efficiencies of Chinese listed liquor companies from 2016 to 2018 by evaluating each company's poverty alleviation input efficiencies, business operations efficiencies, and their social responsibility efficiencies, which was based on their wastewater treatment efficiencies. To overcome the disadvantages in traditional data envelopment models, the DDF model consisted of both input and output direction vectors, the indicator values for which indicated their relative importance or priorities. The analyses found that the indicator efficiencies at most liquor companies had declined, with the poverty alleviation indicator efficiencies being generally lower than the wastewater treatment indicator efficiencies. Several policy and management recommendations are given to improve the overall corporate efficiency and social responsibility in the Chinese liquor industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of China's economy, pollution has made serious impact on environment and human health. However, environmental protection and residents' health are becoming more and more important along with the country's social and economic transformation. Most existing studies have analyzed the path of economic impact on the environment and the production, pollution, and health in isolation. This research takes panel data of 30 provinces in China (including autonomous regions and municipalities, excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) spanning 2014 to 2017 as an example, builds an evaluation indicator system on the basis of the three stages of economic production, wastewater treatment, and human health, and uses the undesirable three-stage dynamic data envelopment analysis model to empirically evaluate the total efficiency, stage efficiency, and the efficiency of various indicators. The research results show the average efficiency of the three stages in most provinces in four years is below 0.5, indicating the poor coordination of each stage; the efficiency gaps among the eastern, central, and western regions are very large because of the resource endowments, geographical environment, industrial structure, strategic adjustment, and other infactors. The total efficiency of the three stages of production input, wastewater treatment, and health output in the eastern region are higher than that of the central region and the western region. From the perspective of stage efficiency, most of the 30 provinces exhibit production efficiency < health efficiency < wastewater treatment efficiency. For the three-phase input and output indicators, the efficiency values and development trends of different provinces vary. The efficiencies of input variables in the wastewater treatment stage and health stage are low in most provinces. This means that the provinces should implement accurate policies according to their own evaluation results and improve the relevance and coordination among the three stages through reasonable allocation of medical input and arrangement of urban employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the development of science and technology through innovation is the core of a country's economic development. This study employed the two-stage meta-frontier dynamic network DEA model to explore the innovation efficiency from the R&D resources to charges received for the use of intellectual property and high-technology exports in 34 high-income and 23 middle-income countries from 2013 to 2017. We calculated the overall efficiency scores and the technology gap ratios of each country and the scores of input and output variables in the research and development (R&D) stage and marketing stage. The results showed that the average overall efficiency scores of middle-income countries were higher than those of high-income countries from 2013 to 2015, but the five-year total score of high-income countries was higher. The R&D efficiency scores were higher in middle-income countries, while the marketing efficiency scores were higher in high-income countries. In the R&D stage, the scores of all input and output variables were higher in middle-income countries but in the marketing stage, the scores of the output variables in high-income countries were obviously higher. High-quality institution can help improve the innovation efficiency in both high-income and middle-income countries. The efficiency improvements are higher in high-income countries during the R&D stage and higher in middle-income countries during the marketing stage. Therefore, both high-income and middle-income countries should strengthen institutional construction in order to improve the efficiency of innovation. And the researches in middle-income countries should pay more attention to local practical issues and their solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the trend of global economic globalization and financial technology innovation, Taiwan's financial industry is facing greater challenges and competition. This research uses the Resample Slacks‐Based Measure and Merger Potential Gains model, which is different from postmerger efficiency evaluation, and uses the concept of premerger evaluations to analyze the technical efficiencies of 14 financial holding banks in Taiwan from 2015 to 2019. The results show that there are positive and postmerger efficiency gains, and there is no guarantee that there will be efficiency gains for financial holding company after the merger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate knowledge transfer efficiency, this study applies a metafrontier epsilon‐based measure (EBM) model to survey data for 102 Chinese and African multinational enterprises (C–A MNEs). The results are as follows. (1) Only 14 of the 102 C–A MNEs have an efficiency score of 1. (2) The scores for different indicators of the same enterprise vary significantly. (3) Technical support input is inefficient, with all major industries showing obvious disadvantages. (4) Team performance efficiency scores significantly lag behind the other output variables' efficiency scores, presenting significant room for improvement. (5) There are differences in the efficiency of knowledge transfer among different industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper selects energy consumption data of 11 provinces in YRB and 19 provinces and cities in non-YRB from 2014 to 2016 and constructs a shared border Metafrontier non-radial directional short model, adding CO2 and AQI indicators as undesirable factors, in order to evaluate the total efficiency and the input and output efficiencies of these two regions. The results are as follows. (1) From the changes in the score and ranking of the two regions' total environmental efficiency, only two provinces in YRB show a slight decrease, while most of them show a stable or rising trend; seven provinces in non-YRB have a low rising rate. This means during the study period that YRB made more progress at energy conservation, emission reduction, and pollution control than other provinces and cities in non-YRB. (2) The efficiency scores of energy consumption, GDP, CO2, and AQI emissions are different in each province. Overall, the situation of YRB is better than that of non-YRB. Not only is the efficiency score of each index higher, but the efficiency difference between provinces and cities within the region is small, which is conducive to the linkage effect of the region and the realization of green coordinated development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water resource shortage has become a major bottleneck restricting the sustainable development of China's economy and society. Identifying the driving factors of water use is helpful to put forward suggestions of water-saving society construction. This paper takes Jiangsu province as example and adopts LMDI (Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index) method to decompose the driving factors of water use change. We find that the production intensity effect and the industrial structure effect are the two dominating factors that induce the decline of total water use. Economic development effect is the most important factor to promote the increase of total water use, and domestic intensity effect is the secondary factors except for 2000–2003 period. Population scale effect on the total water use is relatively weak. The domestic intensity effect is the primary factor to promote the increase of domestic water use; the urbanization effect is a secondary factor to promote the increase of domestic water use. Based on the research conclusions, the corresponding water-saving policy is put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the future promotion of Paris Agreement, the European Union (EU) has become an object of concern in the world through its own performance at improving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions. This research collects data from 28 EU countries and Norway from 2010 to 2015 to evaluate their energy and CO2 emission efficiency through a meta-frontier non-radial directional distance function. Different from previous studies, only considering the individually countries efficiency comparison, this research divides the sample countries into two groups, the group of North-Western European countries and the group of Central-Eastern European countries. The empirical results show that there is a declining trend in the efficiency value of Central-Eastern European countries from 2010 (0.832) to 2015 (0.792), and a significant average technology gap ratio at 0.904. We then compare energy and CO2 emissions' room for improvements for specific countries and conclude that the Central-Eastern European countries should learn from the management experience of the North-Western European countries. It is an effective way to improve the energy and CO2 emission performances of EU countries by restricting the transfer of high carbon emissions industries and encouraging the long-term sustainable development of renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]