Performance Evaluation and Investment Analysis for Container Port Sustainable Development in China: An Inverse DEA Approach

Container ports play an important role in international maritime trade. However, the rapid growth of the port and terminal industry has caused many environmental pollution problems. This paper intends to develop an inverse data envelopment analysis (IDEA) model for measuring container ports' efficiency and analyzing their resource consumption by considering undesirable outputs. Statistical data from 16 main ports are empirically examined using the proposed method in accordance with the 13th Five-Year Plan in China. The results indicate that the proposed IDEA is a feasible approach for performance evaluation, and provides policymakers with insights into resource optimization of container ports. A comparative study with another DEA model is also discussed.