Abstract
Eco-efficiency has been receiving attention worldwide, and the effective implementation of environmental regulations (ERs) has become crucial to regional eco-efficiency. This paper uses a method combining mixed directional distance function and bootstrapping approach to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of eco-efficiency under the constraint of land use carbon emission in China from 2004 to 2016. The nonlinear relationship between ER and eco-efficiency is observed with a panel threshold model. Results from empirical tests reveal that eco-efficiency in China during the study period has an upward trend, and the spatial and temporal distribution of eco-efficiency is unbalanced and concentrated. Technical innovation and land marketization (LM) shows double threshold, whereas industrial structure (IS) has a single threshold effect. LM has a promotional effect on eco-efficiency, which differs in the promotion before and after promotion across the threshold value. Reasonable ER can reduce cost by stimulating the innovation of green production technology and achieves a win-win situation between environment and output. This finding further verifies that the ER for eco-efficiency under the constraint of land use carbon emission conforms to the Porter hypothesis. The effect of ER on eco-efficiency changes from negative to positive with the increase of IS level. Adjusting the ownership structure and increasing the proportion of green achievements in the promotion and assessment of officials are important measures in the upgrading of eco-efficiency.
Highlights
The definition of eco-efficiency was first proposed by Schaltegger and Sturm in 1990; the WorldBusiness Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) defines it as the product of price competition advantage, which can satisfy human needs and improve living standards, as well as the impact on the ecological environment and resource consumption gradually reduced to and forecast of earth bearing level of the same level and achieve the coordinated development of environment and society [1].International organizations have been committed to carbon emission reduction for the mitigation of global warming [2,3]
The comparison results show that the average efficiency value of each year after deviation correction was lower than that of the traditional efficiency measurement method, and all average errors were above 0, which indicates that the eco-efficiency value directly measured by the fixed directional distance function was higher than the real value
Traditional measurement methods were highly dependent on the original data, which could not show the characteristics of non-parametric statistics
Summary
Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) defines it as the product of price competition advantage, which can satisfy human needs and improve living standards, as well as the impact on the ecological environment and resource consumption gradually reduced to and forecast of earth bearing level of the same level and achieve the coordinated development of environment and society [1]. International organizations have been committed to carbon emission reduction for the mitigation of global warming [2,3]. In China, energy saving and emission reduction have attracted considerable interest in view of environmental pollution and excessive resource consumption due to rapid economic growth and urban expansion. The focus of CO2 emission reduction is on fossil energy consumption, whereas CO2 generated by land use changes caused by human activities is ignored [4,5]. Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main cause of global warming [6], CO2 emissions accounted. Public Health 2019, 16, 1679; doi:10.3390/ijerph16101679 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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