engleski

Re-examining sustainable development in Europe: A Data Envelopment Approach

Sustainable development is a widely known concept in public and academic circles and in macroeconomic policy as well. This study applies Data Envelopment Analysis to 37 European countries for the period 2004-2016 in order to evaluate sustainable development objectively. The model uses GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita as desirable output, CO2 emissions and Gini Index as undesirable outputs and 3 input variables: unemployment rate, fixed capital formation and energy consumption. In that way, all 3 pillars of sustainable development are included in the analysis. This is the first comprehensive analysis of European countries carried out with this methodology. Several model specifications are observed, in order to check for robustness of results and rankings. The results indicate that those countries which are already highly ranked by existing world indices (such as the United Nations and similar organizations) are ranked similarly in the empirical results of this research. Moreover, the most inefficient countries have shown an increase in sustainable development efficiency score over the observed period.

sustainable development ; data envelopment analysis ; performance ; undesirable output

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