Abstract
Nowadays, eco-efficiency is one of the most widely used comprehensive indicators in many fields and sectors. Understanding eco-efficiency is of great significance to implement sustainable socioeconomic development for decision makers. To assess the comprehensive performance of industrial investment, the eco-efficiency of industrial investment (EEII) is constructed under the comprehensive perspective of economic benefits, energy consumption, and environmental impact in this paper. Then, a new superefficient undesirable-output slack-based measure DEA (SeUo-SBM-DEA) model is proposed and applied to assess the EEII of 30 provinces in China from 2015 to 2017, and its influencing factors are analyzed using the Tobit regression. The empirical results show the following: (1) the eco-efficiency of China’s industrial investment is generally low (0.613), and there exists a significant regional disparity; namely, the average value of EEII was the highest in the eastern regions (0.838), followed by the central regions (0.6) and western regions (0.397). (2) R&D expenditure, economic development level, and foreign direct investment all had a significant positive effect on the eco-efficiency of industrial investment, while investment in treatment of industrial pollution sources and total education funds all had a significant negative effect. Finally, this paper puts forward some suggestions to promote sustainable development of industrial investment based on our findings.
Highlights
China’s industrial development research report (2019) published by China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT) comprehensively shows that China’s industrial development has made remarkable achievements in the past 40 years from the reform and opening [1]
We examine the effect of factors on the eco-efficiency of industrial investment using Eviews 10 software, and the regression results shown in Table 5 show that, in addition to import and export trade (IET), the other five factors pass the significance test
R&D expenditure benefits environmental sustainability, and Adedoyin et al [61] examined the role of R&D expenditure on environmental sustainability in European Union-28 countries and found that the R&D expenditure had a positive impact on attaining Sustainable Development Goals. erefore, the conclusion that R&D expenditure had a significant positive effect on the eco-efficiency of industrial investment is reasonable
Summary
China’s industrial development research report (2019) published by China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT) comprehensively shows that China’s industrial development has made remarkable achievements in the past 40 years from the reform and opening [1]. Fan et al [15] measured and ranked the eco-efficiency level of 40 China’s industrial parks in 2012 using the indicators relevant to resources, economy, and environment and found that the different industrial parks existed a significant regional disparity. This paper attempts to conduct the ecoefficiency of industrial investment (EEII) under the comprehensive perspective of economic benefits, energy consumption, and environmental impact based on previous studies and employs an application to 30 provinces in China. Due to the continuous development of industrial sector in China, it can be expected that it will cause tremendous pressures on resources and the environment in the future, so promoting the improvement of the EEII can be a starting point for the coordinated development of China’s economic and environmental goals. Proportion of industrial investment in GDP Promotion effect industrial investment on GDP growth
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