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European industrial eco-efficiency under different pollutants' scenarios and heterogeneity structures. Is there a definite direction?

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  • Kounetas, Konstantinos
  • Stergiou, Eirini

Abstract

Eco-efficiency has intensified the attention of policymakers in the last decades as the ability to create more goods and services with less impact on the environment consists an instrument towards sustainability. In this paper we utilize data of 14 industries from 27 European countries from 1995 to 2011 to estimate distinct objectives of economic and ecological performance by utilizing directional distance functions under a metafrontier framework. Our results reveal that the existence of a unified technology set causes large differences in the industrial eco-efficiency levels while energy intensive industries can be characterized as the most eco-inefficient .Although the speed of eco-efficiency convergence increases throughout the years, the case of CO2 emissions presents an erratic behavior compared to the other pollutants. Thus, a decomposition of industrial CO2 emissions can be considered as a further subject of research in our study in order to identify the drivers of this change through time.

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  • Kounetas, Konstantinos & Stergiou, Eirini, 2020. "European industrial eco-efficiency under different pollutants' scenarios and heterogeneity structures. Is there a definite direction?," MPRA Paper 98583, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:98583
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Eco-efficiency; Metafrontier; Spillovers; Catch-up; Kaya Identity; European Industries.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

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