The Efficiency Evolution and Risks of Green Development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China

Abstract

The sustainability of economic development is constrained by issues such as the depletion of global resources and environmental deterioration; therefore, assessing the effectiveness of green development is crucial for ensuring both economic and social sustainability. The superefficient, slacks-based measures–data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model and the Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index are used in this study to quantify and analyze the level of green development efficiency of the three major city clusters in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Using techniques such as the Dagum Gini coefficient and Kernel density estimation, this research study also focuses on the regional disparity distribution, dynamic evolution patterns, and risk factors affecting the green and balanced development of city clusters. The results show that, firstly, the green development efficiency of the city clusters presents an overall fluctuating downward trend, and that the low efficiency of resource utilization due to diseconomies of scale is the main obstacle to its growth. Secondly, super variable density and intra-cluster gap are the primary causes of the risk of green and balanced development. There is insufficient momentum to improve green development efficiency. Given these results, the focus of policy implementation to reduce the risk of green development transformation should be on maximizing the driving force of technological progress, improving resource allocation efficiency, and increasing the level of synergistic development within cities.