Threshold of wastewater treatment improvement costs - applying a hybrid dynamic DEA analysis

ABSTRACT

This research uses a hybrid dynamic DEA model to measure the expense efficiency of wastewater treatment improvement by taking account of both the initial time and location gap between regions as a slack factor in a developing country. We empirically examine the expense efficiency of wastewater treatment by combining radial and non-radial methods, employing a radial measurement to evaluate the efficiency of the radial variables, and comparing with a non-radial measurement to evaluate the efficiency of the slack variable. The study further sets up a dynamic model to reflect each region’s economic development trends with two notable discoveries. First, the expense efficiency of wastewater treatment in most regions is inefficient. Second, some regions are subjected to existing disadvantages in both time and geographic location gap and thus are hindered by obstacles in the expense efficiency of wastewater treatment improvement.

KEYWORDS:

• Slack
• radial
• non-radial
• hybrid dynamic DEA
• wastewater treatment
• expense

Data availability statement

All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the submitted article. DOI: 10.1080/1573062X.2021.1930068

Authors’ contributions

conceptualization, F.-P.L. and X.T.; methodology, F.-P.L. and X.T.; software, F.-P.L. and Y.-H.C.; validation, Y.-H.C, F.-P.L. and X.T.; formal analysis, F.-P.L.; investigation, X.T.; data curation, Y.-H.C.; writing—original draft preparation, F.-P.L. and X.T.; writing—review and editing, F.-P.L. and X.T.; supervision, F.-P.L. and Y.-H.C; project administration, F.-P.L

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).