Eco-innovation analysis of OECD countries with common weight analysis in data envelopment analysis

Purpose: Despite unanimity in the literature that eco-innovation (EI) leads to sustainable development, evidence remains limited on measuring EI efficiency with the Malmquist productivity index (MPI). In conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) models, decision-making units (DMUs) are inclined to assign more favorable weights, even zero, to the inputs and outputs to maximize their own efficiency. This paper aims to overcome this shortcoming by developing a common set of weights (CSW). Design/methodology/approach: Using goal programming, this study develops a CSW model to evaluate the EI efficiency of the organization for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries and track their changes with MPI during 2010–2018. Findings: Achieving a complete ranking of DMUs, findings show the higher discrimination power of the proposed CSW compared with the original DEA models. Furthermore, results reveal that Iceland, Latvia and Luxembourg are the only OECD countries that have incessantly improved their EI productivity (MPI > 1) from 2010 to 2018. On the other hand, Japan is the OECD country that has experienced the highest yearly EI efficiency during 2010–2018. This paper also found that Iceland has the highest MPI over 2010–2018. Practical implications: More investment in environmental research and development (R&D) projects instead of generic R&D enables OECD members to realize more opportunities for sustainable development through minimizing energy use and environmental pollution in any form of waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Originality/value: In addition to developing a novel common weights model for DEA-MPI to measure and evaluate the EI of OECD countries, this paper develops a CSW model by including the undesirable outputs for EI analysis.