Measurement and Convergence Analysis of Inclusive Green Growth in the Yangtze River Economic Belt Cities

Guannan Chen,Shaohui Chen,Zhenhuang Yang

doi:10.3390/su12062356

Abstract

The inclusive green growth (IGG) model is an important tool to promote the construction of an urban ecological civilization and promote sustainable and green development, but China’s related research is still in its infancy. Targeting the problem of cross-regional research on technology set differences, this study proposes a method of combining the super-efficiency slack-based measure model and the Metafrontier Malmquist–Luenberger index to measure the IGG of 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), and analyzes their convergence. Earlier research showed that, under the metafrontier, the upstream cities in the YREB have the highest level of technological efficiency, followed by the downstream and the midstream cities, while the midstream cities of the group frontier have the highest technological efficiency. The main source of China’s IGG is technological progress. The YREB has obvious σ-convergence characteristics overall and in the downstream cities, and absolute β-convergence characteristics both overall and in three basins. This research has significance as a reference for the gradual improvement of the IGG of cities in the YREB, and ultimately their overall coordinated development.

Highlights

Since the “green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication” was proposed by the United Nations Conference on sustainable development in 2012, the development concept of inclusive green growth (IGG) has attracted considerable worldwide attention [1]
This study considers IGG as a narrow economic growth mode aimed at fighting poverty and improving social equality, but an evolution from “extensive total expansion” to “intensive and sustainable development”, while maintaining the balance between economic growth, social equality and ecological civilization
This study introduces σ-convergence and absolute β-convergence in order to test whether the IGGs of cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) have convergence characteristics

Summary

Introduction

Since the “green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication” was proposed by the United Nations Conference on sustainable development in 2012, the development concept of inclusive green growth (IGG) has attracted considerable worldwide attention [1]. Herman Daly put forward a more accurate conception of sustainable development, that is, degrowth development [3] This requires the flow of growth without exceeding the capacity of environmental regeneration and absorption. After the United Nations (UN) announced new sustainable development goals in 2016, several countries began adopting IGG as one of their development strategies. Research from both international organizations and individual researchers shows that IGG requires sustainable, inclusive and eco-friendly economic growth. It is an organic combination of two development concepts, namely green growth (GG) and inclusive growth (IG) [4]. The concept of "green growth" was first proposed by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Conference in 2005 [5]

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