Economic Inefficiency Levels of Urban Solid Waste Management Services in Portugal

Ferreira, Diogo; Marques, Rui Cunha; Pedro, Maria Isabel; Amaral, Carolina

Publication

Economic Inefficiency Levels of Urban Solid Waste Management Services in Portugal

2020-05-20Journal article

dc.contributor.author	Ferreira, Diogo
dc.contributor.author	Marques, Rui Cunha
dc.contributor.author	Pedro, Maria Isabel
dc.contributor.author	Amaral, Carolina
dc.date.accessioned	2023-08-31T13:41:40Z
dc.date.available	2023-08-31T13:41:40Z
dc.date.issued	2020-05-20
dc.description.abstract	Key performance indicators (KPI) are widely used tools to evaluate the economic (in)efficiency of services, including the ones devoted to urban solid waste management. Regulatory exercises are, then, mostly based on the outputs from KPIs, raising some questions about their validity. In theory, other more appropriate tools could be used to estimate those efficiency levels. This study evaluates the economic inefficiency level of urban solid waste management services in Portugal (2010–2017) through the adoption of partial frontier benchmarking models (order-m) coupled with weight restrictions. That way, the constructed model can evaluate the performance of those services under some regulatory and sustainability requirements. Then, estimated efficiency levels and some common KPIs are compared in order to understand if the latter are sufficient to explain the economic efficiency. The novelty of this research lies in two main aspects: (a) the utilization of a robust order-α model coupled with weight restrictions linked to regulatory and sustainability impositions to estimate efficiency, and (b) the comparison of economic efficiency and some commonly used KPIs, including waste fractions and recycling rate. Results point towards efficiency distributions that follow Weibull functions, with the average close to 50%; thus, nearly half of the resources have been well spent in municipal solid waste management services since 2010 onwards. Nonetheless, in an efficient system, that average would be close to 100%. Additionally, the considered management related KPIs do not exhibit any relationship with economic efficiency, which means that their interpretation and usefulness for regulatory issues are both limited and should be used carefully. In other words, those KPIs are not good performance drivers and carry no capacity to explain economic (in)efficiency in urban solid waste management services.	pt_PT
dc.description.version	info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion	pt_PT
dc.identifier.citation	Cunha Ferreira, D., Cunha Marques, R., Pedro, M. I., & Amaral, C. (2020). Economic Inefficiency Levels of Urban Solid Waste Management Services in Portugal. Sustainability, 12(10), 4170. MDPI AG. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su12104170	pt_PT
dc.identifier.doi	10.3390/su12104170	pt_PT
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/28376
dc.language.iso	eng	pt_PT
dc.peerreviewed	yes	pt_PT
dc.publisher	MDPI	pt_PT
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	pt_PT
dc.subject	urban solid waste treatment; key performance indicators; economic efficiency; regulatio	pt_PT
dc.title	Economic Inefficiency Levels of Urban Solid Waste Management Services in Portugal	pt_PT
dc.type	journal article
dspace.entity.type	Publication
oaire.citation.issue	10	pt_PT
oaire.citation.startPage	4170	pt_PT
oaire.citation.title	Sustainability	pt_PT
oaire.citation.volume	12	pt_PT
person.familyName	Cunha Ferreira
person.familyName	Cunha Marques
person.givenName	Diogo Filipe
person.givenName	Rui
person.identifier	81575
person.identifier.ciencia-id	CF13-9741-551E
person.identifier.ciencia-id	3013-F044-8D6F
person.identifier.orcid	0000-0001-5418-9337
person.identifier.orcid	0000-0003-0344-5200
person.identifier.rid	F-6646-2010
person.identifier.scopus-author-id	15837022600
rcaap.rights	openAccess	pt_PT
rcaap.type	article	pt_PT
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