Technical Efficiency of Regional Public Hospitals in China Based on the Three-Stage DEA.

Many countries are facing the increasing cost of healthcare services and the low efficiency of public hospitals. These issues are also evident in China. This paper offers a comprehensive assessment of the efficiency of public hospitals operating in China's 31 regions.

Productivity change and its driving forces in Chinese healthcare sector.

Since the last medical reform in 2009, China's public hospitals have been facing the changes in the institutional environment. However, the effects of reforms have not been received enough attention to deliver evidence-based implications. In this paper, we first assess the efficiency of regional public hospitals from 2011 to 2018, employing a proposed method based on an additive indicator and an aggregate directional distance function (DDF).

Are women neglected in the EU agriculture? Evidence from Lithuanian young farmers.

The agriculture in Eastern Europe has seen a number of economic and social transitions. This research examines the gender inequality in agriculture by taking the case of an Eastern European country - Lithuania - as an example. The questionnaire survey was employed in order to check the existence of gender inequality.

Is environmental regulation effective in promoting the quantity and quality of green innovation?

Green innovation (GI) is an important means of achieving a win-win outcome in the form of both economic development and environmental protection. Using a unique Chinese Patent Census Database to identify the quantity and quality of GI in each province and panel data for Chinese industrial sector in 30 provinces from 2002 to 2015, we investigated the impact of environmental regulation (ER) on GI in China. This study presents the first attempt to identify green innovation quality in China.

Evolution of External Health Costs of Electricity Generation in the Baltic States.

Implementation of strict policies for mitigating climate change has a direct impact on public health as far as the external health costs of electricity generation can be reduced, thanks to the reduction of emission of typical pollutants by switching to cleaner low carbon fuels and achieving energy efficiency improvements. Renewables have lower external health costs due to the lower life cycle emission of typical air pollutants linked to electricity generation, such as SO, NOx, particulate matter, NH, or NMVOC (Non-methane volatile organic compounds), which all appear to have serious negative effects on human health. Our case study performed in the Baltic States analyzed the dynamics of external health costs in parallel with the dynamics of the main health indicators in these countries: life expectancy at birth, mortality rates, healthy life years, self-perceived health, and illness indicators.

The impact of income inequality on consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions at the global level: A partially linear approach.

The differences in consumption levels across different strata of income and income inequality give raise to differences in the effects of income inequality on the level of the consumption-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. However, the impact of inequality on consumption-based emissions has been scarcely analysed. Therefore, the aim of this study is to test the relationship between income inequality and consumption-based GHG emission per capita by applying the country-level data for 1990-2014.

The Role of Green Building Materials in Reducing Environmental and Human Health Impacts.

Conventional building materials (CBMs) made from non-renewable resources are the main source of indoor air contaminants, whose impact can extend from indoors to outdoors. Given their sustainable development (SD) prospect, green building materials (GBMs) with non-toxic, natural, and organic compounds have the potential to reduce their overall impacts on environmental and human health. In this regard, biocomposites as GBMs are environmentally friendly, safe, and recyclable materials and their replacement of CBMs reduces environmental impacts and human health concerns.

What Happens to the Health of Elderly Parents When Adult Child Migration Splits Households? Evidence from Rural China.

There is little understanding about the effects of adult child migration on the health of elderly parents left behind in the light of economic contribution and time allocation (farm work and emotional cohesion). Using the pooled data from three latest issues of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in the rural areas, this study assesses the impact of child migration on parents' health by employing instrumental variable approach to deal with the endogeneity problem. Overall, the evidence suggests that adult child migration impairs parental health as indicated by lower self-reported health (SRH), body mass index (BMI), physical activity of daily living (PADL), and higher depression score.

Ecological challenges in life cycle assessment and carbon budget of organic and conventional agroecosystems: A case from Lithuania.

The carbon footprint for organic and conventional crop farming systems was assessed in Kaunas district (Central Lithuania) using the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). Data from field experiments were applied to define the effects of the organic and conventional crop farming systems. Both manure and mineral fertilizers were applied to the conventional and only manure in the organic rotations.

Optimizing crop mix with respect to economic and environmental constraints: An integrated MCDM approach.

This study develops an integrated framework for assessment of cropping sustainability at the aggregate (country) level. Such sustainability criteria as total water footprint, Shannon equitability index, total output, and downside coefficient of yield variation are used to rank the crop mixes, corresponding to different assumptions. Mathematical programming model is applied to generate the crop mixes.

Analysis of China's regional thermal electricity generation and CO emissions: Decomposition based on the generalized Divisia index.

Even though Chinese government has been promoting the development of renewable energy, coal-fired thermal electricity generation still accounts for nearly 70% of the total electricity generation, proving to be the largest carbon dioxide (CO) emitter in China. Uncovering the driving forces of CO emissions, thus, is of great significance to provide appropriate mitigation policies for the sustainable development of China's thermal electricity generation. In this regard, this study aims to fill a research gap by applying Index Decomposition Analysis (IDA) approach via the Generalized Divisia Index Model (GDIM) to examine the driving factors behind the CO emission changes in China's thermal electricity generation during 2000-2016.

Waste problem in European Union and its influence on waste management behaviours.

Waste generation is a critical problem globally and even in the European Union (EU). In EU countries, significant differences have been observed in terms of municipal waste generation. The level of waste generation significantly depended on economic development.

The challenges and opportunities of climate change policy under different stages of economic development.

Climate change policy confronts with many challenges and opportunities. Thus the aim of this study was to analyse the impact of gross domestic product (hereinafter GDP), trade, foreign direct investment (hereinafter FDI), energy efficiency (hereinafter EF) and renewable energy (hereinafter RE) consumption on greenhouse gas (hereinafter GHG) emissions in 1990-2013 and reveal the main challenges and opportunities of climate policy for which policy makers should take the most attention under different stages of economic development. The results showed that the economic growth significantly contributed to the increase of GHG emissions and remains the main challenge in all groups of countries.