Efficiency and environmental regulation: a 'complex situation'

Production of desirable outputs is often accompanied by undesirable by products that have damaging effects on the environment, and whose disposal is frequently regulated by public authorities. In this paper, we compute directional technology distance functions under particular assumptions concerning disposability of bads in order to test for the existence of what we call ‘complex situations’, where the biggest producer is not the greatest polluter. Furthermore, we show that how in such situations, environmental regulation could achieve an effective reduction in the aggregate level of bad outputs without reducing the production of good outputs. Finally, we illustrate our methodology with an empirical application to a sample of Spanish tile ceramic producers.

Efficiency and quality in local government management: the case of Spanish local authorities

This study analyses efficiency levels in Spanish local governments and their determining factors through the application of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) methodology. It aims to find out to what extent inefficiency arises from external factors beyond the control of the entity, or on the other hand, how much it is due to inadequate management of productive resources. The results show that on the whole, there is still a wide margin within which managers could increase local government efficiency levels, although it is revealed that a great deal of inefficiency is due to exogenous factors. It is specifically found that the size of the entity, per capita tax revenue, the per capita grants or the amount of commercial activity are some of the factors determining local government inefficiency.

Consumption externalities, habit formation, and equilibrium efficiency

We analyze the welfare properties of the competitive equilibrium in a capital accumulation model where individual preferences are subjected to both habit formation and consumption spillovers. We also discuss how consumption externalities and habits interact to generate an inefficient dynamic equilibrium. Finally, we characterize optimal tax policies aimed to restore efficient decentralized paths.

A dual characterization of incentive efficiency

We show that incentive efficient allocations in economies with adverse selection and moral hazard can be determined as optimal solutions to a linear programming problem and we use duality theory to obtain a complete characterization of the optima. Our dual analysis identifies welfare effects associated with the incentives of the agents to truthfully reveal their private information. Because these welfare effects may generate non-convexities, incentive efficient allocations may involve randomization. Other properties of incentive efficient allocations are also derived.

Allocative and productive efficiency in REE with asymetric information

We characterize the divergence between informational and economic efficiency in a rational expectations competitive market with asymmetric information about the costs of production. We find that prices may contain too much or too little information with respect to incentive efficient allocations depending on whether the main role of the price is, respectively, the traditional as index of scarcity or informational. Only when REE degenerate to Cournot equilibria the market solution does not show llocative inefficiency. With multidimensional uncertainty we find that the REE price does not have in general the incentive efficient information mix: It pays to sacrifice allocative efficiency at the REE to improve productive efficiency.

Public enterprise reforms and efficiency in regulated environments: the case of the postal sector

Purpose - This paper focuses on analyzing the effect that public reforms have on the efficiency of state-owned enterprises in regulated environments. Design/methodology/approach - The research is focused in the postal sector where public and private companies must obey a legal framework related to provide a universal service. The analysis is carried out using a panel of 7 European postal operators for the period 1997-2003. The activity analyzed was the letter mail division; we take as key variable the unit cost of a letter and use a translog cost function where as independent variables we include traffic levels, labor cost per employee, quality and availability of the service as well as the type of ownership (public or private). Additionally, in a second stage the geographical differences among countries are considered. Findings - Results indicate that postal operators that experienced organizational changes without being privatized, such as the Spanish and Greek operators, do not have higher unit costs than privatized postal operators like the one of Germany and the Netherlands. Moreover, we find that in all cases the operator of Ireland appear to be the most efficient. In this case restructuring process has been carried out giving an important leadership role to workers. This suggests us that labor culture could be a key variable to study when analyzing reform processes in public enterprises. Originality/value - Our findings show that in a regulated environment like in the postal sector, public and private companies can obtain similar efficiency levels in term of unit costs.

Cooperative production and efficiency

We characterize the sharing rule for which a contribution mechanism achieves efficiency in a cooperative production setting when agents are heterogeneous. The sharing rule bears no resemblance to those considered by the previous literature. We also show for a large class of sharing rules that if Nash equilibrium yields efficient allocations, the production function displays constant returns to scale, a case in which cooperation in production is useless.

The Appraisal of projects with environmental impacts. Efficiency and Sustainability

It is usually assumed that the appraisal of the impacts experienced by present generations does not entail any difficulty. However, this is not true. Moreover, there is not a widely accepted methodology for taking these impacts into account. Some of the controversial issues are: the appropriate value for the discount rate, the choice of the units for expressing the impacts, physical or monetary units -income, consumption or investment- and the valuation of tangible and intangible goods. When approaching the problem of very long term impacts, there is also the problem of valuing the impacts experienced by future generations, through e.g., the use of an intergenerational discount rate. However, if this were the case, the present generation perspective would prevail, as if all the property rights on the resources were owned by them. Therefore, the sustainability requirement should also be incorporated into the analysis. We will analyze these problems in this article and show some possible solutions.

Organisational status and efficiency: the case of the spanish SOE "Paradores"

The purpose of this paper is to provide new evidence on the issue of the effect on public enterprises economic performance of the introduction of some given changes in organisational status and management practices, while keeping the enterprises under public control. Our approach is case study type and relies on comparative efficiency literature. We identify relevant changes on the organisational status of a State owned large hotel group along a period of twenty years, next we measure its annual efficiency indicators, and then evaluate to which extent the observed changes in economic performance can be attributable to the corresponding management reforms carried out. As a result we find that the formally more relevant change in organisational status (the enterprise passing to be a Limited Company), which implied a substantial increase in the enterprise autonomy, did not produce a significant improvement in its economic performance; a finding contrary to what we expected according to agency theory. However, a second relevant organisational change –five years later- when both the principal (government) and the agent (firm’s CEO) changed is consistently related to a significant improvement in economic performance. As a research implication we abide for use more precise agency theory statements; and as a practical implication we argue here that potentialities of improvement brought about by a formal-legal change in the status of the enterprise may require also –in order to actually improve firm’s efficiency- some changes in the firm’s key personal positions: supervisor (principal) and CEO (agent), in the sense that a change to a greater-autonomy for the enterprise it seems should come together a parallel new ‘management culture’. Practical implications Management good practises to apply to other public enterprise’s restructuring in order to improve their efficiency. It’s the first study on organizational changes and efficiency for an important Spanish public enterprise.

Occurrence and bioaccumulation study of PCDD and PCDF from mineral feed additives

Occurrence of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) was evaluated in sepiolite as a widely employed binder and anti-caking agent for animal feed. Also, naturally contaminated kaolinitic clay was used for comparative purposes. Since sepiolite shows remarkable adsorption properties, particular interest was paid to the extraction steps as they become critical for the final determination of these pollutants in such matrixes. Furthermore, classical Soxhlet extraction using different extracting strategies as well as acid treatment were carried out with simultaneous liquid-liquid extraction. Results obtained depended on the extraction procedure applied. Acid treatment or Soxhlet extraction using a mixture of toluene:ethanol as solvent allowed to reach the minimum requirements of recovery rates. However, Soxhlet extraction using a mixture cyclohexane:toluene as extracting solvent did not allow to comply with minimum specifications for recovery. Significant differences were obtained in TEQ units when acid treatment was applied in comparison to Soxhlet extraction. This fact can be explained because the use of drastic acid conditions allows removing strongly adsorbed analytes which can be uniquely extracted after a total destruction of the crystalline structure of sepiolite. On the contrary, Soxhlet extraction was not able to destroy the structure of sepiolite and as a consequence the PCDDs/Fs were strongly adsorbed in the internal structure of the mineral. From biological point of view the availability of these toxicants constitutes a critical aspect playing an important role in the final decision choosing particular analytical procedures. Then, acid conditions in the digestive tract should be taken into account. In this scenario, a bioaccumulation study was conducted to evaluate the transference of PCDDs/PCDFs from the sepiolite into the animal tissues when fed with feed containing sepiolite. To this end, chickens were used as a model to examine the bioavailability of PCDDs/PCDFs. Four groups of chickens were exposed through their diet to a control feed, feed with 3% w/w sepiolite as additive, feed contaminated with PCDDs/PCDFs at concentration around 2.8 pg WHO-TEQ/g and feed with 2% of a contaminated kaolinitic clay (460 pg TEQ/g mineral). Livers of the four studied groups were analyzed throughout the exposure period. Results of this trial showed that the performance of broilers was not affected by the presence of dioxins at levels tested, and chickens did not show any abnormal behaviour. Dioxins intentionally added to the diet were absorbed and accumulated in the liver in a significant manner, whereas the PCDDs/Fs from sepiolite were not available for chickens since livers from broilers fed 3% sepiolite presented similar WHO-TEQ values than those from broilers fed control diet.

Productive efficiency and regulatory reform: The case of vehicle inspection services

Measuring productive efficiency provides information on the likely effects of regulatory reform. We present a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) of a sample of 38 vehicle inspection units under a concession regime, between the years 2000 and 2004. The differences in efficiency scores show the potential technical efficiency benefit of introducing some form of incentive regulation or of progressing towards liberalization. We also compute scale efficiency scores, showing that only units in territories with very low population density operate at a sub-optimal scale. Among those that operate at an optimal scale, there are significant differences in size; the largest ones operate in territories with the highest population density. This suggests that the introduction of new units in the most densely populated territories (a likely effect of some form of liberalization) would not be detrimental in terms of scale efficiency. We also find that inspection units belonging to a large, diversified firm show higher technical efficiency, reflecting economies of scale or scope at the firm level. Finally, we show that between 2002 and 2004, a period of high regulatory uncertainty in the sample’s region, technical change was almost zero. Regulatory reform should take due account of scale and diversification effects, while at the same time avoiding regulatory uncertainty.

Bargaining one-dimensional policies and the efficiency of super majority rules

We consider negotiations selecting one-dimensional policies. Individuals have single-peaked preferences, and they are impatient. Decisions arise from a bargaining game with random proposers and (super) majority approval, ranging from the simple majority up to unanimity. The existence and uniqueness of stationary subgame perfect equilibrium is established, and its explicit characterization provided. We supply an explicit formula to determine the unique alternative that prevails, as impatience vanishes, for each majority. As an application, we examine the efficiency of majority rules. For symmetric distributions of peaks unanimity is the unanimously preferred majority rule. For asymmetric populations rules maximizing social surplus are characterized.

El suro com a adsorbent del plom i el poloni

S’ha estudiat la utilització del suro com a adsorbent de metalls i radionúclids, com el plom i el poloni. Aquesta metodologia es pot aplicar en diferents camps, principalment per la separació d’aquests elements tant per a la seva posterior anàlisi com per l’eliminació i descontaminació en medis naturals. El suro és un bon adsorbent del plom, ja que de promig n’adsorbeix un 80%, i existeix dependència amb la relació superfície – volum del suro. La capacitat de càrrega màxima, a partir de les vuit hores, correspon al suro de diàmetre de partícula de 0.5 a 1 mm, amb un valor proper a 6·10-2 mmol Pb/g suro. El poloni presenta una eficiència d’adsorció menor a la del plom, d’un 50% del poloni present en la solució de càrrega inicial. Del present treball es pot concloure que el suro és un bon material adsorbent per a metalls i/o radionúclids, i per tan pot ser emprat com a una tècnica de separació i/o recuperació alternativa a les actualment establertes, sent més econòmica i biodegradable.

Assesing advertising efficiency: does the internet play a role?

This research focuses on a major concern for marketers addressing the claims of inefficiency of the spending on advertising. We examine whether the Internet can help increase overall advertising efficiency. Using a sample from the Spanish automobile industry, we combine a nonparametric method - Data Envelopment Analysis - with recent important insights from statistics and econometrics studies, and we find that online advertising improves the efficiency levels and this effect is more pronounced in the long-term temporal framework.

Effect of magnesium sulphate and L-tryptophan and genotype on the feed intake, behaviour and meat quality of pigs

Sixty-nine entire male pigs with different halothane genotype (homozygous halothane positive – nn –, n=36; and homozygous halothane negative – NN-, n=33) were fed with a supplementation of magnesium sulphate (Mg) and/or L-tryptophan (Trp) in the diet for 5 days before slaughter. Animals were housed individually and were submitted to stressful ante mortem conditions (mixed in the lorry according to treatments and transported 1 hour on rough roads). Individual feed intake was recorded during the 5-d treatment. At the abattoir, pig behaviour was assessed in the raceway to the stunning system and during the stunning period by exposure to CO2. Muscle pH, colour, water holding capacity, texture and cathepsin activities were determined to assess meat quality. The number of pigs with an individual feed intake lower than 2 kg/d was significantly different among diets (P&0.05; Control: 8.7 %; Mg&Trp: 43.5 %; Trp: 17.4 %) and they were considered to have inadequate supplement intake. During the ante mortem period, 15.2 % of pigs included in the experiment died, and this percentage decreased to 8.7 % in those pigs with a feed intake & 2kg/day, all of them from the stress-sensitive pigs (nn). In general, no differences were observed in the behaviour of pigs along the corridor leading to the stunning system and inside the CO2 stunning system. During the stunning procedure, Trp diet showed shorter periods of muscular excitation than control and Mg&Trp diets. The combination of a stressful ante mortem treatment and Mg&Trp supplementation led to carcasses with high incidence of severe skin lesions. Different meat quality results were found when considering all pigs or considering only those with adequate supplement intake. In this later case, Trp increased pH45 (6.15) vs Control diet (5.96) in the Longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle (P&0.05) and pH at 24h (Trp: 5.59 vs C: 5.47) led to a higher incidence of dark, firm and exudative (DFD) traits in SM muscle (P&0.05). Genotype affected negatively all the meat quality traits. Seventy-five percent of LT and 60.0 % of the SM muscles from nn pigs were classified as pale, soft and exudative (PSE), while none of the NN pigs showed these traits (P&0.0001). No significant differences were found between genotypes on the incidence of DFD meat. Due to the negative effects observed in the Mg&Trp group in feed intake and carcass quality, the utilization of a mixture of magnesium sulphate and tryptophan is not recommended.