Abstract
This paper proposes an improved three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to measure the environmental-economic efficiency (EEE) of air pollution control for 30 province-level areas of China during the period of 2012 to 2016. In this model, capital, labor, and total energy consumption are the three inputs, while gross domestic product (GDP) and waste gas emissions represent the desirable and undesirable outputs, respectively. This model allows the weights of economic growth and environmental protection to be adjusted as needed by policymakers; the model is adopted to evaluate the effects of government measures on environmental protection and economic growth. Ultimately, the effects from environmental factors and statistical noise are excluded from the EEEs of local governments and the managerial efficiencies are calculated. The results simultaneously reflect the local performance of air pollution control and economic development, which can be used to clarify the ranking of provinces nationwide.
Highlights
Clean air is fundamental for human and ecosystem health as well as ensuring future development in the world
economic efficiency (EEE) calculated by Model 2: (Model 2) in the first stage includes the effect of environmental factors and statistic noise
The original inputs are adjusted by the results of the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) to ensure that all provinces experience the environmental effects at the same level and to avoid the unfairness caused by statistical noise
Summary
Clean air is fundamental for human and ecosystem health as well as ensuring future development in the world. Given the rapid economic development and industrialization, governments face an increasing number of issues caused by air pollution [1]. Air pollution refers to harmful or excessive quantities of substances, including gases, particulates, and biological molecules, in the atmosphere, whose properties and duration may damage human health and other living organisms. Governments, especially in developing countries, have been forced to make trade-offs between their energy supply stability, environmental issues, and economic development [2]; this is the situation in China [3]. China has encountered severe air pollution, especially in winter. The northern and eastern regions have experienced severe air pollution as a result of waste gas emissions [8]. In certain northeastern Chinese cities, such as Shenyang and Harbin, the peak concentrations of PM2.5 (i.e., fine particulate matter with a diameter of under 2.5 micrometers) exceeded 1000 μg/m3 , far above the upper limits for all international standards, as shown in Figure 2 [9]
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