Evaluation of the Development Efficiency of China's Regional Low-Carbon Economy Based on Three-Stage DEA Model

Abstract

With the goal of achieving carbon peak by 2030, it is necessary to objectively and correctly evaluate the development efficiency of low-carbon economy in China's provinces and municipalities. Starting from a review of the existing relevant literature, this paper uses a three-stage DEA Model, incorporating elements of the degree of low-carbon human development into external environmental variables, to conduct an empirical study of the development efficiency of low-carbon economy in 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 2017 to 2019. It is found that environmental factors such as the ratio of tertiary industry to secondary industry output, the intensity of R&D investment, and per capita disposable income had an impact on the evaluation results. After excluding external environmental factors and random errors, the overall low-carbon economic development level has improved, but there is still room for improvement of 29%. In particular, pure technical efficiency is underestimated, while scale efficiency is overestimated. In addition, regional differences are evident, with a pattern of "East China > Central China > Southwest China > North China = South China > Northeast China > Northwest China", which is basically consistent with the three-year average GDP ranking of each region.