Article ID: | iaor20122930 |
Volume: | 17 |
Issue: | 4 |
Start Page Number: | 309 |
End Page Number: | 316 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2012 |
Journal: | Transportation Research Part D |
Authors: | Heng Yan, Lim Siew Hoon, Chi Junwook |
Keywords: | ecology, economics, geography & environment |
This paper introduces toxic air pollutants into the measurement of trucking productivity to obtain true productivity growth. Our results show that omitting or ignoring toxic air pollutants in measuring trucking productivity yields statistically significant biased productivity estimates in for 2002–2005. Trucking productivity growth was understated by the traditional productivity measure, because the latter did not account for reductions in truck air pollution over time. We also find that the difference between traditional and environmental efficiency scores was negligible, suggesting that environmental constraint did not distort efficiency in the trucking sector.