Abstract
The sustainable development of China’s high-tech manufacturing (HTM) sector is restricted by dependence on technology introduction and foreign direct investment (FDI), low input-output efficiency, and environmental pollution. This study aimed to examine the roles of technology introduction and FDI in improving the technical efficiency of Chinese HTM from an environmental perspective. By integrating stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and projection pursuit (PP) based on the real-coded accelerated genetic algorithm (RAGA), this study constructed a RAGA-PP-SFA model that considers undesirable outputs. This model includes various outputs, including environmental pollution, in the production function to improve estimation accuracy. Moreover, to verify the robustness of the estimation results, the results were provided when environmental pollutants were taken as input factors. The results showed that technology introduction could significantly promote HTM’s technical efficiency, while FDI had no significant positive effect. By comparing the estimated results with those that did not consider environmental pollution, this study not only reveals different roles of technology introduction and FDI in improving HTM’s technical efficiency but also confirms that ignoring environmental pollution will overestimate their roles (especially the role of FDI) in such improvement.
Highlights
In recent decades, China’s high-tech manufacturing (HTM) industry has rapidly improved its technological capabilities, catching up with and even surpassing developed countries in certain technical fields and industries [1]
According to the logarithmic likelihood function values of formulas (12)–(14), likelihood ratio test (LR test) values corresponding to various hypothesis tests were calculated. e test results showed that the trans-log production function was not applicable to the sample data, and it was unnecessary to consider technological progress in the production function
Model 1.1 takes R&D investment (RD) and human capital (HC) as control variables, and model 1.2 adds domestic technology transfer (DT) and ownership structure (OS) as control variables. e variance parameters of model 1.1 and model 1.2 are both significant at the 1% significance level, and their values are both higher than 0.600. is indicates that the deviation between the actual output and the theoretical maximum output mainly came from the technical invalid effect. erefore, the model setting of real-coded accelerated genetic algorithm (RAGA)-projection pursuit (PP)-stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) was reasonable
Summary
China’s high-tech manufacturing (HTM) industry has rapidly improved its technological capabilities, catching up with and even surpassing developed countries in certain technical fields and industries [1]. Decades of extensive development have led to low inputoutput efficiency and serious pollution in the HTM sector. Ese problems are intertwined and seriously restrict the sustainable development of HTM in China. International technology transfer is a process in which developing countries acquire technology from abroad through technology introduction and FDI [8]. Ere are still many controversies in the research on the relationship between international technology transfer and technical efficiency in developing countries, including the three viewpoints summarized below International technology transfer is a process in which developing countries acquire technology from abroad through technology introduction and FDI [8]. ere are still many controversies in the research on the relationship between international technology transfer and technical efficiency in developing countries, including the three viewpoints summarized below
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