Sustainable Human Development at the Municipal Level: A Data Envelopment Analysis Index

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T08:39:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2022-02-01 The development of indexes for human development and environmental sustainability issues are an emerging topic in the current literature. However, the literature has put less emphasis on municipal indexes, which is the focus of this research. In this paper, we considered municipal environmental management as the adoption of environmental activities and the development of infrastructural and technical capacities in municipalities. This article aims to create a sustainable human development index with municipal data from the state of São Paulo in Brazil. Using information from the Municipal Human Development Index (IDHm) and the GreenBlue Municipal Program (PMVA), we applied the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique to connect human development and environmental sustainability in 645 Brazilian municipalities. Our findings show that regions with higher human development present better DEA scores on the Sustainable Human Development Index. In contrast, regions with a low or a middle level of human development do not present significant change considering both dimensions. Moreover, our findings reveal that PMVA certification has a different and statistically significant impact on the DEA score considering certified, qualified, or not qualified regions. We found similar results for urbanized and service-oriented municipalities. Our indicator is an essential and straightforward tool for regional policymakers, helping to allocate resources and to find human development and environmental sustainability benchmarks among developing regions. Department of Production Engineering School of Engineering of Bauru São Paulo State University (UNESP), Campus Bauru Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering School of Engineering of Bauru São Paulo University (UNESP), Campus Bauru Department of Production Engineering Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), Campus Nova Andradina Innovation Economics Institute of Economics University of Hohenheim Department of Economics Institute of Social and Applied Sciences Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP) Department of Production Engineering School of Engineering of Bauru São Paulo State University (UNESP), Campus Bauru Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering School of Engineering of Bauru São Paulo University (UNESP), Campus Bauru