Sustainable total factor productivity of transport: considering safety issues and environmental impacts

Abstract

Economy, environment and safety are three important components of sustainable transport. This paper proposes a productivity measurement standard that comprehensively considers economic growth, environmental impact and safety issues, namely sustainable total factor productivity (STFP). We measure the growth rate of STFP in transport sector of OECD countries in terms of Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA). It is found that the growth rate of total factor productivity in transport sector can be overestimated if safety is ignored. In addition, we discuss the influence of socio-economic factors on the measurement results, finding that there exists a threshold on the impact of environmental regulation intensity on the growth of STFP in transport. That is, STFP increases with environmental regulation intensity if it is smaller than 0.247, while STFP decreases if it is larger than 0.247.

The econometric analysis of voluntary environmental regulations and total factor productivity in agribusiness under digitization

“…Stavropoulos et al [ 47 ] argue that there is a ’U’ shaped relationship between environmental regulations and the competitiveness of China’s IC industry, with positive effects in the long run as long as the regulations are properly designed. Lu and Chen [ 48 ] based on data from the transport sector, found an intermediate value for the effect of environmental regulation intensity on total factor productivity growth. In addition, Tian and Feng [ 49 ] expanding on existing studies, examined the internal structure of different types of environmental regulation on green total factor productivity and showed that there is a significant non-linear relationship between different types of environmental regulation and the intrinsic factors of total factor productivity.…”