Regional economic growth and environmental efficiency in greenhouse emissions: A conditional directional distance function approach

By using conditional directional distance functions this paper investigates the effect of regional economic growth on regions’ environmental efficiency in greenhouse gas emissions. A sample of ninety eight regions (NUTS 2 level) from Germany, France and the U.K. has been used and regional environmental inefficiencies have been obtained using both the unconditional and conditional output directional distance functions. The results reveal that German regions have the highest environmental efficiency levels. In addition it appears that the effect of regional economic growth on regions’ environmental efficiency levels varies between regions and countries due to different national administrative arrangements on the implementation of environmental policies.