We review nonparametric estimation of efficiency and productivity, by which we mainly mean activity analysis, or data envelopment analysis (DEA). The review covers topics that we hope will be of special interest to those doing research in the realm of agriculture. We also include a brief...

This study introduces an Environmental Performance Index (EPI) to assess the performance of firms that produce both good and bad outputs. In the one good output one bad output case, the EPI simplifies to the ratio of good–bad output for period t + 1 and period t. After deriving the index,...

In recent years, economists have started to move beyond calculating regulatory effects on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis since their interaction is important. In this study, we take up this issue. To allow for joint production of multiple pollutants and marketable output, we specify our...

This study derives the relationship between environmental production functions and environmental directional distance functions. These two approaches make different assumptions when modeling the joint production of good and bad outputs. The environmental production function credits a producer...

With the advent of tradable permit programs for bad outputs (e.g., SO2 emissions); concerns arose over whether the theoretical gains from trade would be realized. We will employ a methodology that calculates the potential gains accruing to coal-fired electric power plants from implementing a...

Jointly with kilowatt-hours (kWh), electric power plants also produce CO2, NOx, and SO2. In this paper, we apply an environmental production model based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) to compare the production of kWh under command-and-control regulation of the undesirable byproduct with...