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Energy efficiency (EE) in the construction sector is crucial for sustainable development, particularly in emerging economies like Pakistan, where the industry accounts for a large share of energy consumption and environmental degradation. Despite its economic significance, Pakistan’s construction sector suffers from inefficiencies in energy use, with limited comprehensive assessments to guide improvements. This research introduces a novel, integrated approach combining Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Tobit regression to evaluate and enhance EE in construction projects. DEA was applied to data from 120 construction firms, revealing an average technical efficiency (TE) of 84.4%, pure technical efficiency (PTE) of 93.2%, and scale efficiency (SE) of 90.4%, highlighting notable inefficiencies. The Tobit regression analysis identifies key factors influencing EE, including contractor training, access to loans, experience, and project site distance. This dual-method framework not only measures EE but also provides actionable insights to address inefficiencies, offering practical implications for policymakers and industry stakeholders. The findings emphasize the need for targeted interventions, such as government-supported financing and contractor training programs, to promote energy-efficient practices in Pakistan’s construction sector. This approach provides a replicable model for other developing economies seeking sustainable construction practices.

Improving the level of public sports services enhances citizens’ physical fitness by implementing the national fitness program. A systematic and scientific efficiency evaluation is a prerequisite for optimizing and improving the level of public sports services in China. Based on data of the Chinese Statistic Yearbook, this study adopted the three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to measure and analyze the efficiency of public sports services in 31 provinces in China in 2016. To analyze the efficiency of public sports services, technical efficiency was decomposed into pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Simultaneously, environmental variables were added to improve accuracy. The results showed that scale efficiency was overestimated, and external technical efficiency was underestimated, before the elimination of external factors and environmental variables. Environmental factors significantly impacted the efficiency of public sports services. Regional gross domestic product (GDP) had a potentially positive impact, while population size partially restricted public sports service efficiency. After eliminating the impact of environmental and random factors, the comprehensive efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency of public sports services all showed improvement in varying degrees. The results provide beneficial insights for the formulation of rational improvement policies for public sports services.

【Objective】Water shortage is a pressing issue in many regions of China, where significant differences exist in agricultural production conditions and efficiency among provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. Assessing the agricultural production efficiency of these regions is essential for identifying developmental bottlenecks and devising strategies to enhance both productivity and water use efficiency.【Method】A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model was used to evaluate the comprehensive efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency of agricultural production in 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across China from 2004 to 2022. Additionally, the DEA-Malmquist productivity index was applied to analyze the components of efficiency change and the temporal variation characteristics.【Result】The results indicate that, from 2004 to 2022, eight provinces and municipalities achieved DEA efficiency in agricultural production in all years, 12 regions were DEA efficient in some years, and 11 provinces and autonomous regions were consistently non-DEA efficient. Despite total factor productivity indices exceeding 1.000 both nationally and regionally, indicating an overall increase in agricultural production efficiency, the technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency remained largely unchanged. Technological progress was identified as the primary driver of the observed increase in efficiency. In regions that are non-DEA efficient, such as Hebei and Shanxi, redundant inputs in agricultural water resources and effective irrigated areas suggest that reducing excessive input or reallocating underutilized inputs could enhance production efficiency and the effectiveness of farmland water conservancy investments. Regions with fluctuating pure technical and scale efficiency indices around 1.000 should focus on optimizing production scale and improving the efficiency of existing technologies. Conversely, regions with low technological progress indices, such as Xinjiang and Yunnan, should prioritize technology optimization, adopt water-saving innovations, and enhance farmland water infrastructure.【Conclusion】Our findings reveal significant regional variations in agricultural production efficiency and total factor productivity across China. Strategies for improving these efficiencies are outlined, providing a basis for targeted interventions to enhance agricultural productivity and water use efficiency in water-scarce regions.

Background: The county is the basic unit of national economic and social development, and is also the foothold and starting point of public sports services. Purpose: Taking the top 100 economic counties of China in Zhejiang Province as the research object, this study explores the allocation efficiency and influencing factors of public sports resources in the period of 2016 to 2020. Methods: The output-oriented Super-SBM model, which is used to measure the static efficiency of its public sports resource allocation, is combined with the DEA–Malmquist model to measure the total factor productivity from the perspectives of overall characteristics, regional heterogeneity, and individual differences. Moreover, we objectively evaluate the dynamic evolution and spatiotemporal characteristics of resource quality growth, financial management technology, and allocation efficiency from the horizontal cross-section and vertical time series. Results: (1) The efficiency of allocation of public sports resources in the top 100 economic counties in Zhejiang Province is relatively high, but it presents the characteristics of “extensive” allocation, and the allocation structure is unreasonable. (2) The super-efficiency gradient division of public sports resources shows that Yuhuan City ranks first with a state of super-efficiency allocation; Ruian, Linhai, Wenling, Yiwu, and Haining have a state of high-efficiency allocation; and other regions are characterized by a state of medium- or low-efficiency allocation. (3) The improvement of total factor productivity depends on the catching-up feature of technological efficiency on the production frontier, but it has not yet compensated for the negative effect of the decline of technological progress, resulting in a decline in total factor productivity with an average annual trend of 0.3%. (4) The level of county economic development has a highly significant positive effect on the allocation efficiency of public sports resources, while the per capita sports ground area has a highly significant negative effect on efficiency. The county population density has a highly significant impact, and regional factors have no significant effect on efficiency. Conclusions: The results of this study provide useful insights for the development of sound public sports service improvement policies.

In today’s volatile financial environment, banks encounter various risks, including political instability, regulatory changes, and global market fluctuations, which can undermine efficiency and threaten systemic stability. This study focuses on banking efficiency in the MENA region, highlighting its crucial role in economic growth and financial stability. This paper addresses the gap in banking efficiency research in the MENA region by evaluating the technical and pure technical efficiency of 59 conventional banks from 11 MENA countries between 2019 and 2023 and identifying the internal and external factors affecting their efficiency. Using a Data Envelopment Analysis, the study evaluates efficiency based on three inputs and two outputs. A panel Tobit regression model is then applied to analyze the impact of eight internal factors and four external factors on efficiency. The findings indicate that just 16% of the MENA banks were technically efficient, with Qatari banks outperforming and banks in Morocco and Jordan underperforming. The Tobit regression model results indicate that both return on assets and capital adequacy positively influence technical efficiency (TE) and pure technical efficiency (PTE). In contrast, Liquidity and operational costs negatively affect PTE and TE. Non-performing loans negatively impact TE but not PTE, and macroeconomic factors positively influence both TE and PTE. In conclusion, banks in the MENA region must prioritize improving their efficiency to stay competitive. The findings offer valuable insights into operational best practices and provide practical guidance for policymakers, regulators, and banking institutions to enhance the performance of the region’s financial systems.

Whether government expenditure in elderly-care institutions can improve the efficiency of care in elderly-care institutions is not only related to the realisation of “Care for the Elderly,” but also one of the concerns of policymakers and implementers. In order to explore the impact of government expenditure on the efficiency of care in elderly-care institutions, DEA-Tobit two-stage model is used with a sample of 50 elderly-care institutions in Wuhan. Firstly, the efficiency of institutional elderly-care service is evaluated using the DEA method. Secondly, the Tobit regression model is employed to examine the effect of government expenditure on the efficiency of institutional elderly-care service. The research finds that government direct investment has no significant effect on the efficiency of care in elderly-care institutions, while fiscal subsidies can effectively improve it. Under the condition of controlling other variables, for every 10,000 yuan increase in fiscal subsidies, the value of comprehensive technical efficiency and pure technical efficiency of elderly-care institutions increase by 0.244 and 0.181, respectively. Therefore, to improve the efficiency of care in elderly-care institutions, fiscal subsidies should be chosen more often to purchase care in elderly-care institutions, and through it to guide the social forces to enter the field of nursing services.

PurposeIn Tunisia, foreign commercial exchanges are predominantly maintained via ocean freight and accomplished through eight major ports. The latter play a critical role in the Tunisian economy, whereby nearly 30.7 million tons of goods were transited in 2018. Maintaining their efficiency therefore remains a very important objective to achieve. In this context, the present study is designed to investigate the technical efficiency of respective Tunisian ports over the 16-year period (2005–2020).Design/methodology/approachThe stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method is applied to measure the associated time-invariant and time-varying technical efficiency. Moreover, through technical inefficiency modeling, effects of both rail connectivity and private sector participation in handling activities on technical efficiency have also been accounted for.FindingsThe reached results turn out to reveal well that the Tunisian ports appear to operate below their production frontier, noticeably marked by persistent technical inefficiency. Additionally, the relevant estimates tend to confirm the berth variable associated importance in highlighting production related to Tunisian ports. More particularly, our analysis reveals that the private sector’s participation proves to display a significantly negative association with technical efficiency, while the ports’ rail connectivity turns out to demonstrate a significantly positive correlation with technical efficiency.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study can provide port authorities and policymakers with insights into the technical efficiency of Tunisian ports by identifying best practices, the main factors influencing their efficiency (such as rail connectivity and private sector’s participation) and areas for improvement in these ports.Originality/valueThe present study stands as a pioneering attempt to examine the efficiency dimension through the implementation of panel data estimation modeling frameworks, particularly the random-effects and the Battese and Coelli (1995) approaches, applied to measure the technical efficiency of the Tunisian port sector. Similarly, the present study also represents an effective attempt, whereby the effects of exogenous variables, notably the rail connectivity and private sector participation, are thoroughly considered in exploring the technical efficiency of Tunisian ports.

This study examines the effects of natural disasters, such as typhoons, floods, droughts, and pest infestations, on the technical efficiency of rice production in Vietnam. Employing stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), the research estimates the technical efficiency in rice production of 2394 farmers from the 2018 Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) dataset. The findings indicate that the average technical efficiency of rice production among these farmers is 78.99%. Exposure to natural disasters and pest infestations leads farmers to reduce their investments in rice production, resulting in decreased technical efficiency, lower yields, and reduced profitability. Among the various disasters, droughts have the most significant adverse impact on technical efficiency in rice production. The results highlight the limited capacity of farmers to cope with the challenges posed by natural disasters in rice production. The study emphasizes the importance of providing timely support to farmers, fostering resilience within the context of rice farming, and enhancing agricultural sustainability in Vietnam. To address these challenges effectively, policymakers are advised to prioritize facilitating farmers’ access to agricultural insurance. Additionally, encouraging income diversification among farmers becomes crucial to ensuring provisions in the case of income loss from rice production due to natural disasters or pest infestations. Moreover, measures such as promoting climate-smart agricultural practices, improving water management infrastructure, establishing early warning systems, and emphasizing pest and disease control measures can be implemented to mitigate losses resulting from natural disasters and pest infestations.

Erratic rainfall has a detrimental impact on crop productivity but rainfall during the specific growth stage is rarely used in efficiency analysis. This study focuses on this untapped point and examines the influence of rainfall specifically encountered during the sowing stage and early vegetative growth stage and the flowering stage of pulses on productivity and efficiency in Lower Myanmar using data from 182 sample farmers. The results of a stochastic frontier production function reveal that rainfall incidence during the flowering season of pulses has a negatively significant effect on yield while replanting crops after serious damage by rain increases productivity. Controlled rainfall variables, seed rate, human labor and land preparation cost are important parameters influencing pulses yield. In the efficiency model, levels of yield loss have a negative impact while being a male household head, access to government credit, access to training, locating farms in the Bago Region and possessing a large area of pulses have a positively significant effect on technical efficiency. Policy recommendations include the establishment of a safety network, such as crop insurance to protect farmers from losses due to unpredictable weather conditions, promoting training programs on cultural practices adapted to climate change, wide coverage of extension activities, giving priority to small-scale farmers and female farmer participation in training and extension activities and increasing the rate of credit availability to farmers.

The study of environmental sustainability in the aviation industry mainly focuses on research targeting specific regions such as the United States, Europe, and China. However, for the environmental sustainability of the aviation industry, global airlines on all continents around the world must implement efficient environmental management. This study divides the world into six continents and attempts to verify environmental efficiency for airlines belonging to each continent. Using data from 2014 to 2018 of 31 global airlines, this study compares environmental efficiency in the aviation industry by continent and individual airline. Data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is actively used in efficiency studies was adopted as an analysis method. We find that, first, airlines in Europe and Russia have the highest environmental efficiency, and airlines in North America and Canada are the second highest, which can be a good benchmark for other airlines. Second, in technical efficiency (TE) values, airlines in Africa and the Middle East and Latin America generally have low efficiency; but, in the airlines in Africa and the Middle East, environmental efficiency is steadily improving slightly. In comparison, airlines in Latin America showed a decrease in environmental efficiency value, requiring a lot of effort and investment to improve efficiency. Third, for airlines in North America and Canada, the scale efficiency (SE) value was the lowest, even though there was a high level of overall environmental efficiency, indicating the need for efficiency improvement through economies of scale. This study has implications, in that, it suggests how airlines can perform efficient environmental management for sustainability according to the continent to which they belong.