IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v10y2017i12p1992-d121227.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing for Environmental Kuznets Curve in the EU Agricultural Sector through an Eco-(in)Efficiency Index

Author

Listed:
  • George Vlontzos

    (Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly, Fytoko, 38446 Volos, Greece)

  • Spyros Niavis

    (Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly, Pedion Areos, 38334 Volos, Greece)

  • Panos Pardalos

    (Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Florida, 401 Weil Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611-6595, USA)

Abstract

Studies on agricultural production practices advance within international literature and new methods are proposed in order to assess the agricultural sustainability, either at farm or macro level. The present paper builds on these advancements and develops a synthetic Eco-(in)efficiency index by employing a directional distance function—data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. This index is used in order to assess the sustainability of the EU agricultural sector for the period 1999–2012 on a country level. Furthermore, Eco-(in)efficiency, together with the energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are regressed on the gross domestic product (GDP) of EU countries, in order to check for any environmental Kuznets curve relationship existence. Results signify that efficiency improvements are possible, both towards output development and GHG emissions reduction. In addition, the potential of each country in adopting more sustainable production practices is not totally connected with its economic development, as Eco-(in)efficiency and GDP levels of EU countries seem to be linked with an N-Shaped curve.

Suggested Citation

  • George Vlontzos & Spyros Niavis & Panos Pardalos, 2017. "Testing for Environmental Kuznets Curve in the EU Agricultural Sector through an Eco-(in)Efficiency Index," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-15, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:12:p:1992-:d:121227
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/1992/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/1992/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bohringer, Christoph & Jochem, Patrick E.P., 2007. "Measuring the immeasurable -- A survey of sustainability indices," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 1-8, June.
    2. Beckerman, Wilfred, 1992. "Economic growth and the environment: Whose growth? whose environment?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 481-496, April.
    3. Han, Xiaoli & Chatterjee, Lata, 1997. "Impacts of growth and structural change on CO2 emissions of developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 395-407, March.
    4. Christensen, Lee A., 2002. "Soil, Nutrient, And Water Management Systems Used In U.S. Corn Production," Agricultural Information Bulletins 33618, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Stern, David I., 2004. "The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1419-1439, August.
    6. Vlontzos, George & Niavis, Spyros & Manos, Basil, 2014. "A DEA approach for estimating the agricultural energy and environmental efficiency of EU countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 91-96.
    7. Suri, Vivek & Chapman, Duane, 1998. "Economic growth, trade and energy: implications for the environmental Kuznets curve," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 195-208, May.
    8. Halkos, George Emm. & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2009. "Exploring the existence of Kuznets curve in countries' environmental efficiency using DEA window analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2168-2176, May.
    9. Rødseth, Kenneth Løvold, 2016. "Environmental efficiency measurement and the materials balance condition reconsidered," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(1), pages 342-346.
    10. Alfons Oude Lansink & Alan Wall, 2014. "Frontier models for evaluating environmental efficiency: an overview," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 43-50.
    11. Picazo-Tadeo, Andrés J. & Beltrán-Esteve, Mercedes & Gómez-Limón, José A., 2012. "Assessing eco-efficiency with directional distance functions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 220(3), pages 798-809.
    12. Managi, Shunsuke, 2006. "Are there increasing returns to pollution abatement? Empirical analytics of the Environmental Kuznets Curve in pesticides," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 617-636, June.
    13. Tim J. Coelli & D. S. Prasada Rao, 2005. "Total factor productivity growth in agriculture: a Malmquist index analysis of 93 countries, 1980–2000," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 32(s1), pages 115-134, January.
    14. Kaika, Dimitra & Zervas, Efthimios, 2013. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory—Part A: Concept, causes and the CO2 emissions case," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1392-1402.
    15. Galeotti, Marzio & Lanza, Alessandro & Pauli, Francesco, 2006. "Reassessing the environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 emissions: A robustness exercise," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 152-163, April.
    16. Knox Lovell, C. A. & Pastor, Jesus T. & Turner, Judi A., 1995. "Measuring macroeconomic performance in the OECD: A comparison of European and non-European countries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 507-518, December.
    17. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Tyteca, Daniel, 1996. "An activity analysis model of the environmental performance of firms--application to fossil-fuel-fired electric utilities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 161-175, August.
    18. Watanabe, Michio & Tanaka, Katsuya, 2007. "Efficiency analysis of Chinese industry: A directional distance function approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 6323-6331, December.
    19. Oggioni, G. & Riccardi, R. & Toninelli, R., 2011. "Eco-efficiency of the world cement industry: A data envelopment analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2842-2854, May.
    20. Xueqin Zhu & Alfons Oude Lansink, 2010. "Impact of CAP Subsidies on Technical Efficiency of Crop Farms in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 545-564, September.
    21. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    22. Mohamed Ghali & Laure Latruffe & Karine Daniel, 2016. "Efficient Use of Energy Resources on French Farms: An Analysis through Technical Efficiency," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-15, July.
    23. Culas, Richard J., 2007. "Deforestation and the environmental Kuznets curve: An institutional perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 429-437, March.
    24. Vlontzos, G. & Pardalos, P.M., 2017. "Assess and prognosticate green house gas emissions from agricultural production of EU countries, by implementing, DEA Window analysis and artificial neural networks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 155-162.
    25. Hoang, Viet-Ngu & Rao, D.S. Prasada, 2010. "Measuring and decomposing sustainable efficiency in agricultural production: A cumulative exergy balance approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 1765-1776, July.
    26. Arrow, Kenneth & Bolin, Bert & Costanza, Robert & Dasgupta, Partha & Folke, Carl & Holling, C.S. & Jansson, Bengt-Owe & Levin, Simon & Mäler, Karl-Göran & Perrings, Charles & Pimentel, David, 1996. "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 104-110, February.
    27. David I. Stern, 2017. "The environmental Kuznets curve after 25 years," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 7-28, April.
    28. Suzuki, Soushi & Nijkamp, Peter, 2016. "An evaluation of energy-environment-economic efficiency for EU, APEC and ASEAN countries: Design of a Target-Oriented DFM model with fixed factors in Data Envelopment Analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 100-112.
    29. Zaim, Osman, 2004. "Measuring environmental performance of state manufacturing through changes in pollution intensities: a DEA framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-47, January.
    30. Taskin, Fatma & Zaim, Osman, 2000. "Searching for a Kuznets curve in environmental efficiency using kernel estimation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 217-223, August.
    31. Tamazian, Artur & Chousa, Juan Piñeiro & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2009. "Does higher economic and financial development lead to environmental degradation: Evidence from BRIC countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 246-253, January.
    32. Osman Zaim & Fatma Taskin, 2000. "A Kuznets Curve in Environmental Efficiency: An Application on OECD Countries," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 17(1), pages 21-36, September.
    33. G. Vlontzos & S. Niavis, 2014. "Assessing the Evolution of Technical Efficiency of Agriculture in EU Countries: Is There a Role for the Agenda 2000?," Cooperative Management, in: Constantin Zopounidis & Nikos Kalogeras & Konstadinos Mattas & Gert Dijk & George Baourakis (ed.), Agricultural Cooperative Management and Policy, edition 127, chapter 0, pages 339-351, Springer.
    34. Lauwers, Ludwig, 2009. "Justifying the incorporation of the materials balance principle into frontier-based eco-efficiency models," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1605-1614, April.
    35. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2008. "A survey of data envelopment analysis in energy and environmental studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-18, August.
    36. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2012. "Data envelopment analysis for environmental assessment: Comparison between public and private ownership in petroleum industry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(3), pages 668-678.
    37. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Wang, H., 2012. "Energy and CO2 emission performance in electricity generation: A non-radial directional distance function approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 221(3), pages 625-635.
    38. Dong Tian & Fengtao Zhao & Weisong Mu & Radoslava Kanianska & Jianying Feng, 2016. "Environmental Efficiency of Chinese Open-Field Grape Production: An Evaluation Using Data Envelopment Analysis and Spatial Autocorrelation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-13, November.
    39. Costanza, Robert, 1995. "Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 89-90, November.
    40. Daniel Tyteca, 1997. "Linear Programming Models for the Measurement of Environmental Performance of Firms—Concepts and Empirical Results," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 183-197, May.
    41. Jules Pretty & Craig Brett & David Gee & Rachel Hine & Chris Mason & James Morison & Matthew Rayment & Gert Van Der Bijl & Thomas Dobbs, 2001. "Policy Challenges and Priorities for Internalizing the Externalities of Modern Agriculture," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 263-283.
    42. Scheel, Holger, 2001. "Undesirable outputs in efficiency valuations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 400-410, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jahira Debbarma & Hyoungsuk Lee & Yongrok Choi, 2021. "Sustainable Feasibility of the Environmental-Friendly Policies on Agriculture and Its Related Sectors in India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-14, June.
    2. Abbas Mardani & Dalia Streimikiene & Tomas Balezentis & Muhamad Zameri Mat Saman & Khalil Md Nor & Seyed Meysam Khoshnava, 2018. "Data Envelopment Analysis in Energy and Environmental Economics: An Overview of the State-of-the-Art and Recent Development Trends," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-21, August.
    3. Jakub Staniszewski & Łukasz Kryszak, 2022. "Do Structures Matter in the Process of Sustainable Intensification? A Case Study of Agriculture in the European Union Countries," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-19, February.
    4. Daiva Makutėnienė & Algirdas Justinas Staugaitis & Bernardas Vaznonis & Gunta Grīnberga-Zālīte, 2023. "The Relationship between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth in the Baltic Countries’ Agriculture: A Non-Linear Framework," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Eleni Zafeiriou & Christos Karelakis & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Konstantinos Galanopoulos & Dimitra Gkika, 2023. "Economic Development and Pesticide Use in EU Agriculture: A Nonlinear Panel Data Autoregressive Distributed Lag Approach," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-22, August.
    6. Leonidas Sotirios Kyrgiakos & Georgios Kleftodimos & George Vlontzos & Panos M. Pardalos, 2023. "A systematic literature review of data envelopment analysis implementation in agriculture under the prism of sustainability," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-38, March.
    7. Raúl Arango-Miranda & Robert Hausler & Rabindranarth Romero-Lopez & Mathias Glaus & Sara P. Ibarra-Zavaleta, 2018. "Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Energy Consumption and Economic Growth: A Comparative Empirical Study of Selected Developed and Developing Countries. “The Role of Exergy”," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-16, October.
    8. Zhihai Yang & Dong Wang & Tianyi Du & Anlu Zhang & Yixiao Zhou, 2018. "Total-Factor Energy Efficiency in China’s Agricultural Sector: Trends, Disparities and Potentials," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-16, April.
    9. Mihaela Sterpu & Georgeta Soava & Anca Mehedintu, 2018. "Impact of Economic Growth and Energy Consumption on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Testing Environmental Curves Hypotheses on EU Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-14, September.
    10. Jing Huang & Dongqian Xue & Chuansheng Wang & Jiehu Chen, 2022. "Resource and Environmental Pressures on the Transformation of Planting Industry in Arid Oasis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-18, May.
    11. Raul Arango Miranda & Robert Hausler & Rabindranarth Romero Lopez & Mathias Glaus & Jose Ramon Pasillas-Diaz, 2020. "Testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis in North America’s Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-13, June.
    12. Mansi Wang & Noman Arshed & Mubbasher Munir & Samma Faiz Rasool & Weiwen Lin, 2021. "Investigation of the STIRPAT model of environmental quality: a case of nonlinear quantile panel data analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(8), pages 12217-12232, August.
    13. Haider Mahmood & Abdullatif Sulaiman Alrasheed & Maham Furqan, 2018. "Financial Market Development and Pollution Nexus in Saudi Arabia: Asymmetrical Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-15, December.
    14. Spyros Niavis & George Vlontzos, 2019. "Seeking for Convergence in the Agricultural Sector Performance under the Changes of Uruguay Round and 1992 CAP Reform," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-13, July.
    15. George Halkos & Kleoniki Natalia Petrou, 2019. "Analysing the Energy Efficiency of EU Member States: The Potential of Energy Recovery from Waste in the Circular Economy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-32, September.
    16. Magdalena Rybaczewska-Błażejowska & Wacław Gierulski, 2018. "Eco-Efficiency Evaluation of Agricultural Production in the EU-28," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-21, December.
    17. Yu, Xiaohong & Xu, Haiyan & Lou, Wengao & Xu, Xun & Shi, Victor, 2023. "Examining energy eco-efficiency in China's logistics industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    2. Halkos, George E. & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2013. "A conditional directional distance function approach for measuring regional environmental efficiency: Evidence from UK regions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 227(1), pages 182-189.
    3. Halkos, George & Polemis, Michael, 2016. "The good, the bad and the ugly? Balancing environmental and economic impacts towards efficiency," MPRA Paper 72132, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Halkos, George Emm. & Tzeremes, Nickolaos G., 2009. "Exploring the existence of Kuznets curve in countries' environmental efficiency using DEA window analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2168-2176, May.
    5. Béchir Ben Lahouel & Younes Ben Zaied & Guo-liang Yang & Maria-Giuseppina Bruna & Yaoyao Song, 2022. "A non-parametric decomposition of the environmental performance-income relationship: evidence from a non-linear model," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(1), pages 525-558, June.
    6. Pascalau, Razvan & Qirjo, Dhimitri, 2017. "TTIP and the Environmental Kuznets Curve," MPRA Paper 80192, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Bennedsen, Mikkel & Hillebrand, Eric & Jensen, Sebastian, 2023. "A neural network approach to the environmental Kuznets curve," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    8. Vlontzos, George & Niavis, Spyros & Manos, Basil, 2014. "A DEA approach for estimating the agricultural energy and environmental efficiency of EU countries," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 91-96.
    9. Leleu, Hervé, 2013. "Shadow pricing of undesirable outputs in nonparametric analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 474-480.
    10. Mikkel Bennedsen & Eric Hillebrand & Sebastian Jensen, 2022. "A Neural Network Approach to the Environmental Kuznets Curve," CREATES Research Papers 2022-09, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    11. Mardani, Abbas & Zavadskas, Edmundas Kazimieras & Streimikiene, Dalia & Jusoh, Ahmad & Khoshnoudi, Masoumeh, 2017. "A comprehensive review of data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach in energy efficiency," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1298-1322.
    12. Halkos, George & Tzeremes, Nickolaos, 2012. "Regional economic growth and environmental efficiency in greenhouse emissions: A conditional directional distance function approach," MPRA Paper 40015, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Jeanneaux, Philippe & Latruffe, Laure, 2016. "Modelling pollution-generating technologies in performance benchmarking: Recent developments, limits and future prospects in the nonparametric frameworkAuthor-Name: Dakpo, K. Hervé," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(2), pages 347-359.
    14. David I. Stern, 2017. "The environmental Kuznets curve after 25 years," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 7-28, April.
    15. Muhammad Shahbaz & Avik Sinha, 2019. "Environmental Kuznets curve for CO2emissions: a literature survey," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 46(1), pages 106-168, January.
    16. Halkos, George & Tzeremes, Nickolaos, 2011. "A conditional full frontier modelling for analyzing environmental efficiency and economic growth," MPRA Paper 32839, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 431-455, August.
    18. Dakpo, Hervé K & Jeanneaux, Philippe & Latruffe, Laure, 2014. "Inclusion of undesirable outputs in production technology modeling: The case of greenhouse gas emissions in French meat sheep farming," Working Papers 207806, Institut National de la recherche Agronomique (INRA), Departement Sciences Sociales, Agriculture et Alimentation, Espace et Environnement (SAE2).
    19. Halkos, George & Petrou, Kleoniki Natalia, 2018. "A critical review of the main methods to treat undesirable outputs in DEA," MPRA Paper 90374, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Tsolas, Ioannis E., 2011. "Performance assessment of mining operations using nonparametric production analysis: A bootstrapping approach in DEA," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 159-167, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:12:p:1992-:d:121227. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.