Association between the environmental efficiency and corruption perception index: A dynamic alternative metafrontier SBM approach

Corruption involves abuse of power and increases economic inequality, which may hinder progress toward achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 16.B. While some studies have examined the economic and environmental implications of corruption, the dynamic relationship between the environmental efficiency and different levels of corruption in different countries, while accounting for their respective geographical regions, has still not been fully explored. To address this gap, this study proposes a dynamic alternative which is meta-frontier slacks-based measure approach to investigate variations in environmental efficiency across different corruption levels while accounting for geographic regions. Empirical results reveal that the corruption perception index is associated with environmental efficiency, and that geographical region and government transparency are both determinants of environmental efficiency.