Incentive regulation and performance measurement of Taiwan’s incineration plants: an application of the four-stage DEA method

The aim of this paper is to provide a technical efficiency assessment of Taiwan’s incineration plants as the basis of incentive regulation schemes. We integrate the four-stage approach with Simar and Wilson’s (in J Econom 136:31–64, <CitationRef CitationID="CR32">2007</CitationRef>) double bootstrapping to filter out the impacts of external variables in the efficiency measurement. Empirical results show that there is room for 15 % cost reductions and capacity, ownership, location and experience are all influential in improving the performance of these plants. We also demonstrate how the results can be applied to modify a yardstick incentive scheme. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014