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Prof. Tomas Balezentis
Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics

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0 Agricultural Economics
0 DEA
0 Efficiency Analysis
0 Energy Economics
0 Productivity

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Research article
Published: 16 August 2021 in Business Strategy and the Environment
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Over the recent decades, the evolution of the European Union (EU) agricultural system has resulted in significant structural changes in member states. Knowledge about the nature and main patterns of structural change is critical to select a sustainable development path for the EU agriculture. This paper contributes to the academic discourse on structural changes in agriculture demonstrating the nexus between socio-economic and environmental aspects of development. In this regard, results are important to understand the contribution of the EU agriculture to climate change, because study deals with energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The research covers period from 2008 to 2018 and investigates the fundamental structural change measures, namely, gross value added, labour and agriculture-related energy emissions, in EU member states. Structural changes are investigated applying a shift-share analysis that allows calculating a performance of individual member states, compared to the EU economy. The applied shift-share model investigates the situation of individual member states employing three components. The first component tracks the development of the selected measures with the EU economy growth, the second component shows the change due to effect of economic activities and the third shows competitiveness of agriculture in member states. The shift-share analysis empowers ranking member states in accordance with their progress towards the sustainable development. Findings suggest that EU economy faces the outflow of labour from agriculture and this trend is common for most countries. The changes of gross value added and emissions for fuel combustion demonstrate both upward and downward trends. However, research results suggest that new member states often face more fundamental changes.

ACS Style

Nelė Jurkėnaitė; Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Štreimikienė. The sustainability prism of structural changes in the European Union agricultural system: The nexus between production, employment and energy emissions. Business Strategy and the Environment 2021, 1 .

AMA Style

Nelė Jurkėnaitė, Tomas Baležentis, Dalia Štreimikienė. The sustainability prism of structural changes in the European Union agricultural system: The nexus between production, employment and energy emissions. Business Strategy and the Environment. 2021; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Nelė Jurkėnaitė; Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Štreimikienė. 2021. "The sustainability prism of structural changes in the European Union agricultural system: The nexus between production, employment and energy emissions." Business Strategy and the Environment , no. : 1.

Earlycite article
Published: 29 June 2021 in Kybernetes
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Purpose The proposed DHHFLOWLAD is used to design a recommendation system, which aims to provide the most appropriate treatment to the patient under a double hierarchy hesitant fuzzy linguistic environment. Design/methodology/approach Based on the ordered weighted distance measure and logarithmic aggregation, we first propose a double hierarchy hesitant fuzzy linguistic ordered weighted logarithmic averaging distance (DHHFLOWLAD) measure in this paper. Findings A case study is presented to illustrate the practicability and efficiency of the proposed approach. The results show that the recommendation system can prioritize TCM treatment plans effectively. Moreover, it can cope with pattern recognition problems efficiently under uncertain information environments. Originality/value An expert system is proposed to combat COVID-19 that is an emerging infectious disease causing disruptions globally. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been proved to relieve symptoms, improve the cure rate, and reduce the death rate in clinical cases of COVID-19.

ACS Style

Yuhe Fu; Chonghui Zhang; Yujuan Chen; Fengjuan Gu; Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Streimikiene. Ordered weighted logarithmic averaging distance-based pattern recognition for the recommendation of traditional Chinese medicine against COVID-19 under a complex environment. Kybernetes 2021, ahead-of-p, 1 .

AMA Style

Yuhe Fu, Chonghui Zhang, Yujuan Chen, Fengjuan Gu, Tomas Baležentis, Dalia Streimikiene. Ordered weighted logarithmic averaging distance-based pattern recognition for the recommendation of traditional Chinese medicine against COVID-19 under a complex environment. Kybernetes. 2021; ahead-of-p (ahead-of-p):1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Yuhe Fu; Chonghui Zhang; Yujuan Chen; Fengjuan Gu; Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "Ordered weighted logarithmic averaging distance-based pattern recognition for the recommendation of traditional Chinese medicine against COVID-19 under a complex environment." Kybernetes ahead-of-p, no. ahead-of-p: 1.

Chapter
Published: 26 June 2021 in Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture
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This chapter deals with the performance of EU agriculture from the production economics perspective. The neoclassical economic theory is described and applied to establish the representations of the underlying (environmental) production technology. Parametric and nonparametric methods are invoked to approximate the production technology. Different methods and models are compared in order to check the robustness of the results. Empirical data from the period 1995–2017 are used in the analysis. The measures of efficiency (including distance functions) and estimation thereof parametrically and nonparametrically are outlined. Then, a citation-based literature analysis is applied to discuss the recent trends in the literature on agricultural efficiency and productivity. The seminal papers are identified in order to reveal the prevailing strands of the literature. The empirical analysis proceeds with estimation of the parametric deterministic frontier. Then, parametric regression and nonparametric regression are applied to check the robustness of the results. The restricted frontier is also estimated econometrically by ensuring the regularity conditions. This chapter presents multiple methods for exploring the production possibilities across different settings that may be of interest to analysts and decision-makers.

ACS Style

Tomas Baležentis. Modelling Production Technology for Development of Agricultural Sector. Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture 2021, 65 -120.

AMA Style

Tomas Baležentis. Modelling Production Technology for Development of Agricultural Sector. Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture. 2021; ():65-120.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Tomas Baležentis. 2021. "Modelling Production Technology for Development of Agricultural Sector." Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture , no. : 65-120.

Chapter
Published: 26 June 2021 in Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture
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ACS Style

Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Štreimikienė; Nelė Jurkėnaitė; Vida Dabkienė. Introduction and Key Findings. Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture 2021, 1 -9.

AMA Style

Tomas Baležentis, Dalia Štreimikienė, Nelė Jurkėnaitė, Vida Dabkienė. Introduction and Key Findings. Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture. 2021; ():1-9.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Štreimikienė; Nelė Jurkėnaitė; Vida Dabkienė. 2021. "Introduction and Key Findings." Structural Change, Productivity, and Climate Nexus in Agriculture , no. : 1-9.

Journal article
Published: 26 June 2021 in Technology in Society
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Such large-scale disruptions as the pandemic increase the uncertainty and risk related to business. Therefore, the business continuity management (BCM) has become an essential technical solution for enterprise emergency response. Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 has spread worldwide at an alarming rate causing many threats to sustainable development of the business sector. The decline in consumer demand has hugely impacted service industries, such as wholesale and retail sales, tourism. Enterprise production and operations have faced severe challenges. In this study, we develop a risk factor analysis of BCM under the presence of COVID-19 in China. Based on a statistical survey of 940 enterprises in Hangzhou City, China, this study employs ordinal logistic regression to explore the hindering effect of risk factors introduced by the epidemic on business performance. Then, the interpretive structure model (ISM) is applied to analyze the hierarchical structure of the factors under examination. The key factors influencing the enterprise production and operation during COVID-19 outbreak significantly differ across the sub-sectors of the service industry. Therefore, this paper assesses the resilience of the productive technologies and business models of different industries amid the pandemic. This paper proposes epidemic prevention and control strategy focusing on investment and government regulation to ensure sustainable business development.

ACS Style

Ji Chen; Jiayan Huang; Weihua Su; Dalia Štreimikienė; Tomas Baležentis. The challenges of COVID-19 control policies for sustainable development of business: Evidence from service industries. Technology in Society 2021, 66, 101643 .

AMA Style

Ji Chen, Jiayan Huang, Weihua Su, Dalia Štreimikienė, Tomas Baležentis. The challenges of COVID-19 control policies for sustainable development of business: Evidence from service industries. Technology in Society. 2021; 66 ():101643.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ji Chen; Jiayan Huang; Weihua Su; Dalia Štreimikienė; Tomas Baležentis. 2021. "The challenges of COVID-19 control policies for sustainable development of business: Evidence from service industries." Technology in Society 66, no. : 101643.

Journal article
Published: 23 June 2021 in Applied Energy
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Unintended outputs, as non-market goods, may have no exchange value and require shadow pricing to investigate the abatement costs. Unlike previous research, which assumes homogeneous production technology for decision-making units in the shadow price analysis, this paper considers group and global production frontiers. The ratio of group to global shadow prices is derived to indicate the position with respect to the tangent point (i.e., equal shadow prices) of the group and global technologies. This departs from the conventional technology gap approach. The nonparametric meta-frontier approach is used to evaluate the shadow price of carbon emission for several groups of countries (OECD, ASEAN, BRICS) that are likely to face homogenous technologies. The results show that carbon shadow prices for the countries differ across group and non-meta technologies. Therefore, the traditional approach towards shadow pricing may render a biased economic interpretation. This paper also compares the inefficiency scores with and without considering carbon emissions in countries. Therefore, the role of the carbon emission is assessed from different perspectives.

ACS Style

Zhiyang Shen; Kaixuan Bai; Tianyang Hong; Tomas Balezentis. Evaluation of carbon shadow price within a non-parametric meta-frontier framework: The case of OECD, ASEAN and BRICS. Applied Energy 2021, 299, 117275 .

AMA Style

Zhiyang Shen, Kaixuan Bai, Tianyang Hong, Tomas Balezentis. Evaluation of carbon shadow price within a non-parametric meta-frontier framework: The case of OECD, ASEAN and BRICS. Applied Energy. 2021; 299 ():117275.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Zhiyang Shen; Kaixuan Bai; Tianyang Hong; Tomas Balezentis. 2021. "Evaluation of carbon shadow price within a non-parametric meta-frontier framework: The case of OECD, ASEAN and BRICS." Applied Energy 299, no. : 117275.

Research article
Published: 21 June 2021 in Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja
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Addressing the multi-criteria group decision making problem with interval attribute values and attribute weights, this paper proposes a decision method based on attribute distribution information. The selection of green suppliers is taken as an example for decision analysis. First, in the case of group decision-making, the quantitative values of the evaluation attributes of green suppliers are imputed by decision-makers, and the relevant distributions are constructed for each attribute. Next, combined with the ranges of attribute values, the random interval values are used to describe the information represented by each attribute to overcome the loss caused by the aggregation of individual expert information into group information. We then propose the distributed interval weighted arithmetic average (DIWAA) operator and corresponding operation rules, which realizes the fusion of qualitative data and quantitative judgment. Thus, the proposed approach allows ensuring reasonable results of the multi-criteria analysis. We also construct a ranking method for alternatives based on distributed interval comprehensive scores. Finally, we verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method for the task of green supplier selection through numerical experiments.

ACS Style

Jiayan Huang; Nanyue Jiang; Ji Chen; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. Multi-criteria group decision-making method for green supplier selection based on distributed interval variables. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja 2021, 1 -16.

AMA Style

Jiayan Huang, Nanyue Jiang, Ji Chen, Tomas Balezentis, Dalia Streimikiene. Multi-criteria group decision-making method for green supplier selection based on distributed interval variables. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja. 2021; ():1-16.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jiayan Huang; Nanyue Jiang; Ji Chen; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "Multi-criteria group decision-making method for green supplier selection based on distributed interval variables." Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja , no. : 1-16.

Review
Published: 18 June 2021 in Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja
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Covid-19 pandemic provided many negative effects on world economies and people around the world. The covid-19 creates many threats to sustainability of agriculture sector which is very sensitive because of food supply security needs. First of all, it is necessary to analyse and comprehend the immediate consequences of current pandemic on agricultural and food systems in order to develop necessary actions. The risks, vulnerability, resilience and systemic shifts of agricultural systems need to be better understood in order to adapt to covid-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper is to analyse the negative impacts of covid-19 on agriculture and food systems by applying vulnerability and resilience approach by treating covid-19 like global disaster. The concepts of ‘vulnerability’, and ‘resilience’ which dominates disaster studies historically initiated after the World War II were applied to systematise literature review. The main input of this paper is systematization and grouping of the main measures to enhance resilience of agriculture systems in the face of covid-19 pandemic based on recent scientific studies published in 2020. The future research guidelines are also provided based on conducted systematic literature review.

ACS Style

Dalia Štreimikienė; Tomas Baležentis; Artiom Volkov; Erika Ribašauskienė; Mangirdas Morkūnas; Agnė Žičkienė. Negative effects of covid-19 pandemic on agriculture: systematic literature review in the frameworks of vulnerability, resilience and risks involved. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja 2021, 1 -17.

AMA Style

Dalia Štreimikienė, Tomas Baležentis, Artiom Volkov, Erika Ribašauskienė, Mangirdas Morkūnas, Agnė Žičkienė. Negative effects of covid-19 pandemic on agriculture: systematic literature review in the frameworks of vulnerability, resilience and risks involved. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja. 2021; ():1-17.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Dalia Štreimikienė; Tomas Baležentis; Artiom Volkov; Erika Ribašauskienė; Mangirdas Morkūnas; Agnė Žičkienė. 2021. "Negative effects of covid-19 pandemic on agriculture: systematic literature review in the frameworks of vulnerability, resilience and risks involved." Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja , no. : 1-17.

Journal article
Published: 23 May 2021 in Sustainable Production and Consumption
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The emphasis put on environmental issues of the European Union (EU) agricultural sector in the strategies like the European Green Deal, Biodiversity and Farm to fork strategy give new directions to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) changing the EU agricultural practice into a more environment-and climate-friendly manner. The modified support rules and obligations for farmers will necessitate adopting new farm management practices on farms. This paper proposes the Agri-environmental Footprint Index (AFI) as a tool to identify the current state of the environmental situation and to track the changes and achievements on farms. The proposed approach is applied for the case study in Lithuania for 2017. The farm-level data from the Lithuanian Farm Accountancy data Network (FADN) are exploited. The paper relies on the multivariate statistical techniques (Shannon Entropy and Principal Component Analysis) and multi-criteria approach (Simple Additive Weighting) to construct the composite indicators. The results are analyzed across farming types and farm size classes. The most environmentally beneficial farms are characterized as medium-sized (in economic terms) and specialized in field crops-grazing livestock. The highest share of farms with a low value of AFI was found for the largest farm size class and for farms specialized in horticulture (using Shannon entropy weighting) and orchards (using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) weighting). The results of AFIs using Shannon entropy and PCA weighting across farming types tended to differ. Therefore, in order to apply the proposed tool in practice, testing different weighting schemes is preferable.

ACS Style

Vida Dabkiene; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. Development of agri-environmental footprint indicator using the FADN data: Tracking development of sustainable agricultural development in Eastern Europe. Sustainable Production and Consumption 2021, 27, 2121 -2133.

AMA Style

Vida Dabkiene, Tomas Balezentis, Dalia Streimikiene. Development of agri-environmental footprint indicator using the FADN data: Tracking development of sustainable agricultural development in Eastern Europe. Sustainable Production and Consumption. 2021; 27 ():2121-2133.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Vida Dabkiene; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "Development of agri-environmental footprint indicator using the FADN data: Tracking development of sustainable agricultural development in Eastern Europe." Sustainable Production and Consumption 27, no. : 2121-2133.

Journal article
Published: 26 April 2021 in Technology in Society
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Improving green innovation efficiency (GIE) is crucial for attaining sustainability in China's stage of high-quality development. However, there is a paucity of research on the roles of and links among the government and market in GIE. This study bridges this research gap by unifying marketization, local government competition, and GIE into one empirical framework. First, we extend a super-efficiency Ray slacks-based measure model to evaluate provincial GIE in China during 1997–2018 and then analyze its evolution of spatial-temporal dynamics. Subsequently, marketization, local government competition, and GIE are incorporated into a nest of spatial panel models to address the endogeneity concerns resulting from model misspecification and omitted variables. The empirical results show that China's GIE at the national level is only 0.4813, and above 80% of provinces are far from reaching the green innovation frontier. Moreover, the observed imbalance in GIE between regions continues to worsen; notably, this coincides with the emergence of a pattern under which the gap between the north and south is widening. Furthermore, the seven spatial panel models assessed in this study reveal that local government competition not only has a direct inhibitory effect on GIE, but also indirectly impedes the corresponding promotional effect of marketization. This finding provides new evidence supporting the “grabbing hand of government” view and sheds light on the behaviors of the market and government in green innovation development.

ACS Style

Hongyun Huang; Fengrong Wang; Malin Song; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. Green innovations for sustainable development of China: Analysis based on the nested spatial panel models. Technology in Society 2021, 65, 101593 .

AMA Style

Hongyun Huang, Fengrong Wang, Malin Song, Tomas Balezentis, Dalia Streimikiene. Green innovations for sustainable development of China: Analysis based on the nested spatial panel models. Technology in Society. 2021; 65 ():101593.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hongyun Huang; Fengrong Wang; Malin Song; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "Green innovations for sustainable development of China: Analysis based on the nested spatial panel models." Technology in Society 65, no. : 101593.

Journal article
Published: 26 April 2021 in Journal of Asian Economics
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The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is expected to boost the economic and technological cooperation among the participating countries. In this paper, we argue that the economic and environmental efficiency can be used as measures identifying the best practice in the BRI. However, the results of the analysis may be affected by perturbations in the data and outlying observations. The outliers may lead to biased policy implications. Unlike previous research, this paper compares economic and environmental performance in developing countries using both convex and nonconvex production technologies based on a nonparametric framework. Specifically, this paper extends the by-production model with nonconvex technology. The model allows reducing the impact of extreme production plans (e.g., small or large countries). The resampling approach is applied for the by-production framework. The research covers 61 countries along the Belt and Road during 2000−2017. Our results indicate that the influence of outliers is more significant for convex technology than nonconvex technology. The use of the robust approach is particularly important when a convex technology is assumed. The proposed approach also allowed identifying BRI countries that are significantly over- or underperforming in either economic or environmental efficiency.

ACS Style

Qianqian Yuan; Tomas Baležentis; Zhiyang Shen; Dalia Streimikiene. Economic and environmental performance of the belt and road countries under convex and nonconvex production technologies. Journal of Asian Economics 2021, 75, 101321 .

AMA Style

Qianqian Yuan, Tomas Baležentis, Zhiyang Shen, Dalia Streimikiene. Economic and environmental performance of the belt and road countries under convex and nonconvex production technologies. Journal of Asian Economics. 2021; 75 ():101321.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Qianqian Yuan; Tomas Baležentis; Zhiyang Shen; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "Economic and environmental performance of the belt and road countries under convex and nonconvex production technologies." Journal of Asian Economics 75, no. : 101321.

Earlycite article
Published: 12 April 2021 in Journal of Enterprise Information Management
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Purpose The Green Deal strategy of the European Union (EU) as well as the increasing concerns over resource scarcity worldwide has put forward such concepts as the circular economy. This paper seeks to compare the progress of the development of the circular economy across the EU Member States. Such analysis is helpful in guiding the circular economy support policies. Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a quantitative framework for analysis of the implementation of the circular economy objectives in the EU Member States. The framework proposed includes three multi-criteria decision making methods representing reference point and outranking approaches. The use of multiple methods allows exploiting the differences in the underlying aggregation principles. Findings Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands appear as the most advanced in the sense of circular economy development. The results indicate that the water-locked small countries and the new EU Member States are among the lowest performing ones. The flows of the waste need to be monitored more tightly in order to increase the circularity. The development of recycling facilities can also increase circularity irrespectively of the economic development level (e.g. the case of Bulgaria). Originality/value The paper contributes to the discussion regarding the circular economy by proposing an indicator system and the multi-criteria analysis framework. The proposed indicator system covers input use (circularity), trade flows and recycling processes. The proposed framework can be applied to track the progress of different countries in implementing the targets of the circular economy.

ACS Style

Jonas Ūsas; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. Development and integrated assessment of the circular economy in the European Union: the outranking approach. Journal of Enterprise Information Management 2021, ahead-of-p, 1 .

AMA Style

Jonas Ūsas, Tomas Balezentis, Dalia Streimikiene. Development and integrated assessment of the circular economy in the European Union: the outranking approach. Journal of Enterprise Information Management. 2021; ahead-of-p (ahead-of-p):1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jonas Ūsas; Tomas Balezentis; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "Development and integrated assessment of the circular economy in the European Union: the outranking approach." Journal of Enterprise Information Management ahead-of-p, no. ahead-of-p: 1.

Article
Published: 25 March 2021 in Economic Change and Restructuring
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The pros and cons of economic cooperation and integration have often been debated in the literature. Trade theory suggests that national economies could benefit from multilateral cooperation in international trade and investment owing to transnational division of labour, the mobility of production factors and technology diffusion. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can help promoting economic cooperation and development among BRI countries. This paper embarks on analysis of the potential economic growth for selected BRI countries by investigating technical inefficiency and structural inefficiency. The latter measure assesses the potential gains in productivity due to economic collaboration. The scenario analysis identified China’s influence on pushing the production frontier and optimising resource allocation for the participating countries. The empirical results indicate that structural optimisation may result in higher productivity gains than reduction in technical inefficiency at the country level. Therefore, economic collaboration may facilitate appealing results for the BRI.

ACS Style

Ning Zhu; Xiang Dai; Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Streimikiene; Zhiyang Shen. Estimating production gains from international cooperation: Evidence from countries along the Belt and Road. Economic Change and Restructuring 2021, 1 -22.

AMA Style

Ning Zhu, Xiang Dai, Tomas Baležentis, Dalia Streimikiene, Zhiyang Shen. Estimating production gains from international cooperation: Evidence from countries along the Belt and Road. Economic Change and Restructuring. 2021; ():1-22.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ning Zhu; Xiang Dai; Tomas Baležentis; Dalia Streimikiene; Zhiyang Shen. 2021. "Estimating production gains from international cooperation: Evidence from countries along the Belt and Road." Economic Change and Restructuring , no. : 1-22.

Journal article
Published: 06 March 2021 in Social Science & Medicine
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This study aims to examine the association between province-level socioeconomic welfare factors and depression symptoms among older adults in China. Province-level socioeconomic characteristics were merged with microdata for respondents over 65 years from the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) Wave 4 (N = 6657). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to extract three socioeconomic welfare factors constructed from 14 province-level variables. A Bayesian mixed-effects logistic model was applied to measure the association between the three socioeconomic welfare factors and depression symptoms while controlling for socio-demographic variables. The PCA showed that economic welfare, medical resource welfare, and social service welfare together explained 72.2 percent of the total variance of the 14 province-level variables. It was found that increasing economic welfare was significantly associated with a lower probability of depression symptoms (OR = 0.806, 95%CI: [0.674, 0.967]), while medical facilities were associated with a higher probability of depression symptoms (OR = 1.181, 95%CI: [1.029, 1.354]) among Chinese older adults. Uncertainty existed as to whether having access to social welfare (OR = 0.941, 95%CI: [0.835, 1.060]) was associated with prevalence of depression. Thus, improved socioeconomic welfare systems for older adults (which possibly require an increase in spending) are necessary to contribute further to reduced depression risk in China. Policymakers should also improve the utilization of medical resources to mitigate the incidence of depression among the elderly in China.

ACS Style

Wei Li; Echu Liu; Tomas Balezentis; Huanhuan Jin; Dalia Streimikiene. Association between socioeconomic welfare and depression among older adults: Evidence from the China health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Social Science & Medicine 2021, 275, 113814 .

AMA Style

Wei Li, Echu Liu, Tomas Balezentis, Huanhuan Jin, Dalia Streimikiene. Association between socioeconomic welfare and depression among older adults: Evidence from the China health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Social Science & Medicine. 2021; 275 ():113814.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wei Li; Echu Liu; Tomas Balezentis; Huanhuan Jin; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "Association between socioeconomic welfare and depression among older adults: Evidence from the China health and Retirement Longitudinal Study." Social Science & Medicine 275, no. : 113814.

Journal article
Published: 04 March 2021 in Sustainable Cities and Society
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Decarbonization of heating sector is an important part of the global low carbon energy transition, and an essential step towards implementing climate change mitigation commitments as this sector accounts for 40–50 % of global energy consumption and is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, this sector is sensitive in terms of energy vulnerability and energy poverty. The aim of this paper is to develop a set of indicators and evaluation tool for assessing sustainability of the heating sector at national level and to apply developed methodology for comparative assessment in selected North European countries. The set of indicators developed address concept of sustainability in holistic way and could also be applied universally to compare the European Union (EU) countries and to track the achievements of measures taken at the EU level and in national energy strategies and plans. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) performed by applying the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and four scenarios of heating sector sustainability assessment revealed that three Nordic Countries are the highest ranked according to all sustainability assessment scenarios. These countries can be the cases of the best practice in the heating sector.

ACS Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene; Dalia Streimikiene; Tomas Balezentis. Multi-criteria analysis of heating sector sustainability in selected North European countries. Sustainable Cities and Society 2021, 69, 102826 .

AMA Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene, Dalia Streimikiene, Tomas Balezentis. Multi-criteria analysis of heating sector sustainability in selected North European countries. Sustainable Cities and Society. 2021; 69 ():102826.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene; Dalia Streimikiene; Tomas Balezentis. 2021. "Multi-criteria analysis of heating sector sustainability in selected North European countries." Sustainable Cities and Society 69, no. : 102826.

Journal article
Published: 22 February 2021 in Sustainability
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This study presents an innovative approach to measuring economic resilience at a sectoral level. The notion of economic resilience is explored through the lens of levels of resilience of the main functions of a researched economic sector. The overall level of sectoral economic resilience is seen as a weighted sum of resilience indexes related to its main economic functions. Such a comprehensive approach is universal, as it allows to measure economic resilience of various economic sectors. For the empirical application, the agricultural sector of Lithuania was selected for analysis of resilience. The results revealed that the overall level of resilience declined in Lithuanian agricultural sector during 2012–2019. Such a persistent trend may pose an increasing risk for food security in Lithuania in the future. The most evident negative changes in the economic resilience levels are observed in terms of economic viability of farms. The most robust levels of economic resilience are indicated in the sense of ability to provide local food at affordable prices.

ACS Style

Artiom Volkov; Agnė Žičkienė; Mangirdas Morkunas; Tomas Baležentis; Erika Ribašauskienė; Dalia Streimikiene. A Multi-Criteria Approach for Assessing the Economic Resilience of Agriculture: The Case of Lithuania. Sustainability 2021, 13, 2370 .

AMA Style

Artiom Volkov, Agnė Žičkienė, Mangirdas Morkunas, Tomas Baležentis, Erika Ribašauskienė, Dalia Streimikiene. A Multi-Criteria Approach for Assessing the Economic Resilience of Agriculture: The Case of Lithuania. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (4):2370.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Artiom Volkov; Agnė Žičkienė; Mangirdas Morkunas; Tomas Baležentis; Erika Ribašauskienė; Dalia Streimikiene. 2021. "A Multi-Criteria Approach for Assessing the Economic Resilience of Agriculture: The Case of Lithuania." Sustainability 13, no. 4: 2370.

Journal article
Published: 04 February 2021 in Sustainable Cities and Society
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This paper provides a systematic review and assessment of the existing (composite) indicators for measuring energy poverty (EP). A total of 71 (composite) indicators have been identified for evaluating EP. The systematic literature review integrates the Search, Appraisal, Synthesis and Analysis (SALSA) framework, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement under PSALSAR (Protocol, Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, Analysis and Report) framework. The framework of Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Context (PICOC) is also applied to set the scope of the research. The identified (composite) indicators are assessed based on the Bellagio Sustainability Assessment and Measurement (STAMP) principles. Therefore, recommendations for the practical use of EP indicators are proposed in the article. Structural EP Vulnerability Index, Fuel Poverty Index, and Energy Vulnerability Composite Index are identified as indicators corresponding to the Bellagio STAMP principles to the highest possible extent.

ACS Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene; Dalia Streimikiene; Vidas Lekavicius; Tomas Balezentis. Energy poverty indicators: A systematic literature review and comprehensive analysis of integrity. Sustainable Cities and Society 2021, 67, 102756 .

AMA Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene, Dalia Streimikiene, Vidas Lekavicius, Tomas Balezentis. Energy poverty indicators: A systematic literature review and comprehensive analysis of integrity. Sustainable Cities and Society. 2021; 67 ():102756.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene; Dalia Streimikiene; Vidas Lekavicius; Tomas Balezentis. 2021. "Energy poverty indicators: A systematic literature review and comprehensive analysis of integrity." Sustainable Cities and Society 67, no. : 102756.

Research article
Published: 29 January 2021 in Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja
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Based on an extended three-step CDM model, this paper addresses the impacts of research and development (R&D) and information and communication technology (ICT) on firm productivity for the World Bank innovation survey data of China. The study includes ICT investment and R&D as the two main inputs into innovation and productivity. We find that R&D and ICT investments positively affect product innovation and process innovation, with R&D being more important for innovation and productivity, and ICT being more important for innovation and no direct effect on productivity. We conclude that R&D and ICT investments increase the probability of product innovation and process innovation, which increase firm’s productivity, suggesting that R&D and ICT investments indirectly affect productivity through innovation.

ACS Style

Facang Zhu; Qianqian Li; Shichun Yang; Tomas Balezentis. How ICT and R&D affect productivity? Firm level evidence for China. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja 2021, 1 -19.

AMA Style

Facang Zhu, Qianqian Li, Shichun Yang, Tomas Balezentis. How ICT and R&D affect productivity? Firm level evidence for China. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja. 2021; ():1-19.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Facang Zhu; Qianqian Li; Shichun Yang; Tomas Balezentis. 2021. "How ICT and R&D affect productivity? Firm level evidence for China." Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja , no. : 1-19.

Review
Published: 14 January 2021 in Sustainability
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The European Commission has recently adopted the Renovation Wave Strategy, aiming at the improvement of the energy performance of buildings. The strategy aims to at least double renovation rates in the next ten years and make sure that renovations lead to higher energy and resource efficiency. The choice of appropriate thermal insulation materials is one of the simplest and, at the same time, the most popular strategies that effectively reduce the energy demand of buildings. Today, the spectrum of insulation materials is quite wide, and each material has its own specific characteristics. It is recognized that the selection of materials is one of the most challenging and difficult steps of a building project. This paper aims to give an in-depth view of existing multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) applications for the selection of insulation materials and to provide major insights in order to simplify the process of methods and criteria selection for future research. A systematic literature review is performed based on the Search, Appraisal, Synthesis and Analysis (SALSA) framework and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. In order to determine which MCDM method is the most appropriate for different questions, the main advantages and disadvantages of different methods are provided.

ACS Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene; Dalia Streimikiene; Tomas Balezentis; Virgilijus Skulskis. A Systematic Literature Review of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods for Sustainable Selection of Insulation Materials in Buildings. Sustainability 2021, 13, 737 .

AMA Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene, Dalia Streimikiene, Tomas Balezentis, Virgilijus Skulskis. A Systematic Literature Review of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods for Sustainable Selection of Insulation Materials in Buildings. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (2):737.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Indre Siksnelyte-Butkiene; Dalia Streimikiene; Tomas Balezentis; Virgilijus Skulskis. 2021. "A Systematic Literature Review of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods for Sustainable Selection of Insulation Materials in Buildings." Sustainability 13, no. 2: 737.

Journal article
Published: 12 January 2021 in Expert Systems with Applications
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Large-scale group decision-making (LSGDM) problems generally involve a large number of decision-makers (DMs). In many situations, the number of DMs and alternatives simultaneously make traditional techniques inoperable. This paper proposes a two-stage subgroup decision-making (T-SSGDM) method. In contrast to the traditional LSGDM approaches, this framework does not need a clustering process to reduce the size of DMs/alternatives to a manageable level. Instead, we propose a T-SSGDM process to address inter-group heterogeneity. First, DMs and alternatives are randomly grouped so that the number of alternatives to be assessed by each DM is substantially reduced. Second, as the ratings obtained in the first stage of the decision-making process are incomparable, partial samples are selected for the second stage. The relationships among the ratings of different subgroups are then determined by applying the equivalence test. Additionally, to ensure the robustness of the results, three sampling methods and three kinds of functions for the equivalence test are implemented. Finally, an empirical application is used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

ACS Style

Chonghui Zhang; Weihua Su; Shouzhen Zeng; Tomas Balezentis; Enrique Herrera-Viedma. A Two-stage subgroup Decision-making method for processing Large-scale information. Expert Systems with Applications 2021, 171, 114586 .

AMA Style

Chonghui Zhang, Weihua Su, Shouzhen Zeng, Tomas Balezentis, Enrique Herrera-Viedma. A Two-stage subgroup Decision-making method for processing Large-scale information. Expert Systems with Applications. 2021; 171 ():114586.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Chonghui Zhang; Weihua Su; Shouzhen Zeng; Tomas Balezentis; Enrique Herrera-Viedma. 2021. "A Two-stage subgroup Decision-making method for processing Large-scale information." Expert Systems with Applications 171, no. : 114586.