Search results for "indicator"
showing 10 items of 997 documents
Measuring well-being in Colombian departments. The role of geography and demography
2021
This paper provides a composite indicator of well-being for the 33 Colombian departments in the year 2016. The indicator is built by adapting the well-known OECD Better Life Index to the regional level, and includes the dimensions of income, health, education, safety, housing, environment, labour market, and civic engagement and governance. As to the methodology, Data Envelopment Analysis and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making techniques are employed, an approach which enables a comparison of well-being across departments and the construction of rankings. The results yield several take-away messages. First, there are substantial disparities in well-being across Colombian departments. Second, de…
Human capital and income inequality revisited
2021
This paper revisits the relationship between human capital and income inequality, using an updated data set on human capital inequality and a novel database on earnings inequality. We find an inver...
Is the environmental performance of industrialized countries converging? A ‘SURE’ approach to testing for convergence
2008
In this paper, we test for convergence in the environmental performance of a sample of OECD countries, with data ranging from 1971 to 2002. First, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute two environmental performance indicators (EPIs) in the production theory framework. Second, we propose the use of a sequential multivariate approach to test for convergence in environmental performance. These tests allow us to reconcile the time series literature with the cross-sectional dimension, which is basic when testing for convergence in regional blocs. The SURE technique is used, which allows for the existence of correlations across the series without imposing a common speed of mean revers…
Does a voluntary conservation program result in a representative protected area network?
2009
Abstract Conservation contracting has attained growing interest worldwide as a tool for protecting biodiversity in privately owned lands. In this policy, landowners receive payments from an environmental agency in exchange for land use practices that contribute to the supply of biodiversity. This approach may result in a conservation network which does not cover all focal ecological characteristics, because landowners determine the supply of potential targets. In addition, the contracts are typically allocated by using a scoring method that is not giving information on the representativeness of the species composition of the sites. In this study, we investigated what is the performance of a…
Social progress around the world: trends and convergence
2022
Abstract This paper assesses social progress in 139 countries over the period 1995–2017 following the framework proposed by the Social Progress Imperative; a notable contribution is a composite index allowing for comparisons across countries and over time. The index considers 45 raw indicators covering three fundamental pillars of social progress: basic human needs, foundations of well-being, and opportunities. The results point to a marked improvement in social progress all over the world from the mid-1990s, although they also depict a highly polarized world. Cross-country convergence patterns are also investigated, revealing a reduction in the differences in social progress, largely drive…
Economic and environmental performance of wastewater treatment plants: Potential reductions in greenhouse gases emissions
2014
Abstract Sanitation and wastewater treatment are essential for protecting human health and environmental sustainability. Treatment processes are not free of environmental impacts; consequently assessment of the environmental performance of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has gained interest in recent years. Unlike other methods, a direct approach is followed to estimate environmental performance indicators (EPIs) using data envelopment analysis (DEA), i.e. an index of overall performance is directly obtained. The present study represents pioneering work to integrate environmental impacts in the assessment of the efficiency of WWTP estimating pure (PEPI) and mixed (MEPI) environmental pe…
Assessment of Sustainable Well-being in the Italian Regions: An Activity Analysis Model
2018
Applying the theoretical framework of productive analysis, the paper proposes an evaluation of regional sustainable well-being (SWB) in terms of efficiency. By means of an Activity Analysis Model (AA) (Fare et al., 1996), desirable and undesirable outcomes of development have been simultaneously used to evaluate the sustainable well-being of Italian regions. Data on equal and sustainable well-being provided by the Italian Statistical Office for the year 2010 has been used. The analysis reveals that only four regions achieve sustainable well-being, balancing socio-economic and environmental outcomes and resources. Finally, the study points out the advantages of AA for policy purposes by comp…
Measuring the shadow economy and its drivers: the case of peripheral EMU countries
2019
We adopt a long-run perspective to investigate the size of the shadow economy and explore the trends in this area. The analysis is based on a panel of peripheral EMU countries over the period 1965-2015. Our empirical approach relies on a multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) framework. This approach is a variant of structural equation modelling (SEM). We used two sets of variables, (i.e. potential determinants and indicator variables) to estimate an underlying (unobserved) index that measures the evolution of the shadow economy. Ascertaining the relative importance of the shadow economy enabled analysis of its relationship with other institutional and social issues (e.g. corruptio…
Sustainable growth of EU economies and Baltic context: Characteristics and modelling
2017
The united general growth strategy for all EU Member States, a common economic and political vision as well as location in the same geographic region provides a necessary basis for the benchmarking modelling of economies. The main objective of this study is determination of the functional regularities and drivers of the growth of EU economies and the context of the Baltic States in line with the general trend of the EU, as well as development of the growth model, which can be used for sustainable planning and prediction. Analysis of several regularly published analytical indexes suggests a thesis on innovation as the real basic driving force for EU economies and outlines Innovation Performa…
Institutional Logics in Police Performance Indicator Development : A Comparative Case Study of Spain and Finland
2015
Police performance is not easily measurable and the organization and circumstances of police work vary among European countries. Further, police work is surrounded by multiple pressures to make it both economical and effective. Consequently, there are multiple institutional logics in decision-making which may affect the selection and the use of police key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPI selection and use processes reflect the institutional logics, though KPI use may also sometimes influence the institutional logics of police work. In this study, we analyze the KPIs and institutional logics in police work in Finland and Spain. A comparative case research approach is used in order to h…