Sustainable development initiatives address the issues related to economic growth and mobility, and environmental conservation. Sustainable transportation in the U.S. is an essential component of these initiatives. In this context, since the U.S. is a federally governed country, the needs for policy making can be different from one state to another, which requires state-by-state focus prior to sustainability assessment projects. This study aims to contribute to the scholarship by proposing a slack-based measurement data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model with non-radial approach. This study assesses environmental efficiency of U.S states' transportation sectors from 2004 to 2012. In addition to the environmental efficiency measurement, carbon efficiency, and potential carbon reduction were estimated for the states of the U.S. SBM-DEA provided more comprehensive analysis that combines economic and environmental indicators. This approach also captures the excess input and undesirable output (CO2), and shortfall of desirable output. The findings of this study revealed that the states' transportation sectors are environmentally inefficient showing that on average states had an environmental efficiency score below 0.64. Therefore, the states need to substantially reduce carbon emissions to improve environmental efficiency of transportation.

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a b s t r a c tJet fuel accounts for a large portion of passenger airlines' operating costs, and airlines' earnings are susceptible to swings in the price of jet fuel. This study uses daily data over the past two decades to determine the minimum variance hedge ratio for airlines wishing to hedge jet fuel price risk with futures, while also establishing the best cross hedging asset. Airlines hedging with futures would create the most effective hedge by using heating oil futures contracts with a 3-month maturity. We also find that beyond the 3-month veil, increased time to maturity makes heating oil less effective as a cross hedge proxy for jet fuel. However, both in-sample analysis and Monte Carlo simulation results with daily data show that none of the 4 cross hedge proxies, including heating oil, can be considered highly effective.

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