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This article is focused on assessing the efficiency of six major Nigerian ports from 2007 to 2013 by applying a two-stage fuzzy-based methodology adequate to handle imprecise data. More precisely, fuzzy data envelopment analysis models for traditional assumptions with respect to scale returns are employed to assess the productivity of Nigerian ports over the course of time. In the second stage, fuzzy regressions based on different rule-based systems are used to predict the relationship of a set of contextual variables on port efficiency. These contextual variables are related to different aspects of port service level, berth utilization, accessibility, cargo type, and operator type. The results reveal the impact of operator and cargo type on efficiency levels. Policy implications for Nigerian ports are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite rapid economic development, the transport industry has been claimed to account for a major part of climate change. This paper investigates total factor carbon-sensitive productivity growth in the regional transport sector in China and decomposes its dynamic changes over time taking account of the regional heterogeneity of different provinces. Thus, the contemporaneous metafrontier Malmquist-Luenberger approach that combined with non-radial directional distance functions is proposed and define a new indicator called the contemporaneous metafrontier Malmquist-Luenberger carbon emission performance index (CMML). This total factor indicator includes the metafrontier efficiency-change index (MEC), the metafrontier technology-change index (MTC), and the metafrontier technology-gap-change index (TGC). Results show an about 4% increase in overall total factor carbon emission productivity during the period of 2000–2012. Different growth patterns are also observed in the transport sector across different area of China. In the eastern region, the growth of carbon productivity is driven mainly by pure efficiency changes, whereas the central region is driven mainly by innovations in the low-carbon transport technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the housing market, new properties sometimes experience delays before they are sold. Such delays reflect the preferences of buyers in respect of the homes’ characteristics. Therefore, it is important for managerial purposes to identify the causes of housing sales delays. After analysing the delays in sales of housing in Beijing City, China, the principal finding of this study is that delays are largely explained by the dwellings’ characteristics and location. Policy implications of the research findings, particularly those related to means of reducing the delays, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conservation and efficient use of water resources are directly related to the sustainable and high-quality development in China. This paper regards the pilot policy of water-saving society construction as a quasi-natural experiment, and employs a differences-in-differences approach to evaluate the effectiveness of urban water-saving policies and exploit its drive mechanism by using the panel data of 263 cities in China from 2001 to 2016. Findings show that the pilot policy of water-saving society construction can achieve better water-saving effects, which can not only promote the reduction of urban water consumption in intensity and total amount, but also improve the efficiency of water resources utilization. And this policy has brought long-term dynamic effects on the urban water resources conservation. Heterogeneous effects exist in different types of cities, that is, the water-saving performance is more significant in cities with sufficient water resources and in central China. Besides, this paper finds that the impact of this water-saving policy on urban water resource conservation is mainly through two channels such as water resources infrastructure investment and water resources pricing. These findings provide useful inspirations for local governments to take effective economic measures to manage water resources., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

With rapid economic development, air pollution became a serious problem in China. Vehicle's exhaust emissions are among the main sources of air pollution. With samples of 173 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2016, this paper takes the implementation of driving restrictions as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the relationship between driving restrictions and air quality through the difference-in-differences method based on the propensity score matching. Results indicate that driving restrictions have not improved the air quality in terms of average treatment effect as there is no clear evidence that people turn from private cars to busses or subways. Furthermore, heterogeneous effects of driving restrictions exist across different regions and cities of China. The implementation of driving restrictions has significantly positive impacts on air pollution in the Eastern and Central cities of China, while it has significantly negative effects in non-capital cities. This study implies that the development of local public transportation needs to be taken into account when formulating the policy of driving restrictions.

This study focuses on the sustainability efficiency of the Chinese transportation system by investigating the relationship between CO 2 emission levels and the respective freight and passenger turnovers for each transportation mode from January 1999 to December 2017. A novel Robust Bayesian Stochastic Frontier Analysis (RBSFA) is developed by taking carbon inequality into account. In this model, the aggregated variance/covariance matrix for the three classical distributional assumptions of the inefficiency term-Gamma, Exponential, and Half-Normal-is minimized, yielding lower Deviance Information Criteria when compared to each classical assumption separately. Results are controlled for the impact of major macro-economic variables related to fiscal policy, monetary policy, inflationary pressure, and economic activity. Results indicate that the Chinese transportation system shows high sustainability efficiency with relatively small random fluctuations explained by macro-economic policies. Waterway, railway, and roadway transportation modes improved sustainability efficiency of freight traffic while only the railway transportation mode improved sustainability efficiency of passenger traffic. However, the air transportation mode decreased sustainability efficiency of both freight and passenger traffic. The present research helps in reaching governmental policies based not only on the internal dynamics of carbon inequality among different transportation modes, but also in terms of macro-economic impacts on the Chinese transportation sector., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)