Purpose The purpose of this paper is to measure and compare the technical efficiency of construction companies in seven European countries: Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, during the 2008–2015 period. The analysis involves nine sectors grouped into three divisions: construction of buildings (F41), civil engineering (F42) and specialized construction activities (F43), by NACE classification. Design/methodology/approach Multidirectional efficiency analysis was adopted to investigate the levels of efficiencies, the differences in those levels and the possible causes of such differences by further defining two new indices. Findings It showed that F43 is the most efficient division during the study period, followed by F42 and F41. The sectors/countries with less efficiency are: construction of roads and railways/Poland, construction of other civil engineering projects/Hungary, demolition and site preparation/Poland, other specialized construction activities/Portugal. Globally, the development of building projects sector uses resources in the most inefficient way and there was a drop in the efficiency in 2011 and 2013, showing a delay in the crisis impact. After 2010, civil engineering projects required a substantial effort to access resources. Other features regarding (in)efficiency were further identified. Originality/value The analysis was conducted with one of the most effective techniques in frontier analysis. The first introduced index allows for comparing efficient/inefficient subgroups, and the other index measures the resource acquisition effort, allowing a better comparison along years. The study provides a good understanding of the performance of the construction industry and indirectly exposes the strategies to overcome the crisis, through the identification of the inputs/outputs which are well/badly used.
An energy efficiency comparison of manufacturing sectors of eight European countries, between 2008-2013, is performed in order to understand how the world economical crisis affected their performance. The analysis rely in a combination of multidirectional efficiency analysis blended with other techniques, as nc-value, principal component analysis mixed with a dimensionality test. The purpose is to analyse three different approaches organized by: (a) a general viewpoint on countries/sectors; (b) sectors and inefficiency input usage; and (c) intensive versus non-intensive energy sectors. We also consider non-normalized and normalized data, by the total number of firms. The results indicate that the great majority of sectors/countries analyzed show a decrease in the CO2 emissions. Since the calculated inefficiency indexes expose the sectors which used inputs in excess, we found that the most efficient sectors were: basic metals; rubber and plastic products, products of wood and cork; textiles, wearing apparel and of leather products; whereas chemical products and food; beverages and tobacco products were the most inefficient sectors. Our approach also give indicators about the way each sector/country was affected by the crisis and how they were able to react or adapt to it.
A causa de una crisis financiera en el sector salud, fue declarado un Estado de Emergencia Social mediante el Decreto 4975 del 23 de diciembre de 2009 por el Gobierno de Álvaro Uribe Vélez (declarado inexequible por la Corte Constitucional mediante Sentencia C-252 de 2010). Uno de los considerandos del Decreto 4975, enuncia que una de las razones que motivaron la declaratoria del Estado de Emergencia Social es por el: “cierre de hospitales públicos, quiebra de Instituciones Prestadoras de Servicios de Salud y Entidades Promotoras de Salud, así como la consecuente parálisis de la prestación de los servicios de salud” (2009). Actualmente, a nivel regional 22 de los 44 hospitales públicos de primer nivel de atención localizados en el Valle del Cauca, se encuentran en riesgo fiscal y financiero alto, medio y bajo, que corresponden a un 4.5%, 18.1% y 27.2% respectivamente, según la categorización que efectúa anualmente el Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social con base en los indicadores financieros de los hospitales públicos (artículo 80, Ley 1438 de 2011 y Resolución 2184 de 2016 del Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social). Según Ospina, Molina y Becerra (2016) la crítica situación financiera del sector salud tiene repercusiones sobre la eficiencia, la calidad y la equidad en la prestación de los servicios de salud.
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