Environmental Efficiency Of China Research Articles

Structural characteristics and influencing factors of a spatial correlation network for tourism environmental efficiency in China

The tourism industry in China presents uneven tourism efficiency but deepening spatial associations; thus, tourism resources must be more rationally allocated. In this study, the highly efficient SBM model was used to measure the tourism environmental efficiency of 31 provinces in China. A spatial correlation network is then constructed based on the gravity model, and the structural characteristics and influencing factors of the network are analyzed. The results show that (1) the overall tourism environmental efficiency in China presents a fluctuating growth trend, with significantly higher values observed in the eastern region than in the central and western regions; moreover, the growth in efficiency in the eastern region has been relatively stable in recent years, that in the central region has increased, while that in the western region has significantly declined. (2) A spatially linked network with a stable tourism environmental efficiency structure has been formed in China. The number of network relations and density of the network fluctuate and increase, while the network efficiency continues to decrease; however, a strong small-world nature is observed. (3) An obvious network core–edge structure is observed, with Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu at the center showing a significant intermediary role and remote provinces such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia at the edge showing fewer connections. (4) The four major plates of China based on the CONCOR algorithm are sparsely connected internally and show strong inter-plate connections and spillover effects. (5) The industry support capacity difference matrix, technological development level difference matrix, transportation accessibility difference matrix, and environmental regulation level difference matrix significantly and positively affect spatial associations, while the geographical distance matrix significantly and negatively affect spatial association relationship establishment. These findings have important theoretical and practical significance for the sustainable development of tourism in China's provinces and cities.

Regional differences and determinants of environmental efficiency in China's road transportation industry

The spatial imbalance of road transportation hinders environmental efficiency (EE) improvement. Moreover, the driving factors and evolutionary characteristics of EE regional differences remain unclear. To clarify these, we calculate the EE of thirty Chinese provincial road transportation industries from 2008 to 2020. We also investigate regional difference decomposition and EE evolution trends while exploring the drivers of EE in three regions. The results show that the overall EE presented a fluctuating upward trend and evident spatial differences. Transvariation intensity was the primary source of the widening gaps in provincial EEs nationwide. Additionally, technological progress and increasing water and railway transport contribute to improving the eastern region's EE while decreasing the EE of the central region. Rising population scale improves the EE of the eastern and central regions, while strict environmental regulation improves the western region's EE. Road infrastructure improvements prominently increase the EEs in all three regions.

Spatial spillover effect of environmental regulation on environmental efficiency of electric power industry in China

The electricity power (EP) industry, a primary source of emissions, significantly affects China's energy conservation and reduction efforts. The Chinese government has introduced various regulatory policies to limit the emissions and waste generated by the EP industry. This paper intends to assess the influence of environmental regulation (ER) on the environmental efficiency (EE) within China's EP sector, particularly concerning spatial spillover effects. The slack-based and the spatial Durbin models are applied to quantify EE and analyze the nonlinear connection between ER and EE. Some findings are summarized below. First, the EE of China's EP industry has significant regional heterogeneity and exhibits a positive spatial agglomeration effect of EE. Second, the influence of ER on EE in local provinces shows a U-shaped relationship, while it exhibits an inverted U-shaped effect in neighboring provinces. Third, ER can indirectly drive EE in the local province by affecting technological innovation. Finally, policy recommendations are offered to enhance the EE in China's EP industry.

Evaluating the efficiency of green economic production and environmental pollution control in China

Resource constraints and environmental pollution are common problems that have long plagued sustainable development, and enhancing the efficiency of green development is the key to cracking the problems. Previous studies have not jointly examined the green economic production efficiency and environmental pollution control efficiency of industrial and service sectors, to fill this research gap, this paper use the constructed meta-frontier, dynamic network Super-SBM (slacks-based measure) model to evaluate the environmental efficiency in China's 30 provinces and 107 cities. The results reveal that, (1) the green production efficiency of industrial and service sectors showed a fluctuating downward trend, and the pollution control efficiency improved first and then decreased. The overall environmental efficiency of both sectors is low, indicating a strong potential for improvement of the green development in China. (2) The overall environmental efficiency of industrial and service sectors has obvious regional heterogeneity, and which decreases as the weight of treatment stage increases. Additionly, the overall environmental efficiency of industry is greater than that of service industry. (3) The input inefficiency of the production stage and output inefficiency of the treatment stage are the main sources of inefficiency for the industry and service industry.

Intertemporal environmental efficiency assessment in China: A new network-based dynamic super-efficiency measure.

In order to make a complete ranking of intertemporal environmental efficiency in a dynamic manner, this paper combines the network-based dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA), super-efficiency with the unified efficiency under natural and managerial disposability, and designs a dynamic DEA model and the corresponding dynamic super-efficiency DEA model. Compared with previous studies, the proposed measure can fully rank the overall environmental efficiency of all decision making units (DMUs) in a dynamic manner, and more importantly, it provides the information about when and what factors lead to inefficiency or efficiency of DMUs. The proposed models are applied to examine the environmental efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2017. The results show that there are significant regional differences of environmental efficiency in China. In addition, slack analysis shows that most eastern efficient provinces have no obvious advantages in energy consumption, labor and waste water emission; most central and western efficient provinces have no advantages in sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions and GDP. To improve overall efficiency, eastern inefficient provinces should mainly focus on reducing energy consumption, SO2 emissions and labor, and increasing capital investment in right years, central and western inefficient provinces can focus on reducing SO2 emissions and labor in most years, most of provinces need to increase gross domestic capital formation.

Spatiotemporal interaction characteristics and transition mechanism of tourism environmental efficiency in China

High-quality development is the theme of China’s economic and social development in the new era, and it is also an objective need for tourism development in the 14th Five-Year Plan period. This study presents an investigation of China’s patterns of tourism environmental efficiency from the perspective of spatiotemporal interactions. A nested analytical framework of quantile regression and spatiotemporal leaps was used to explore the driving mechanism patterns of tourism environmental efficiency under different leap types. Based on various spatial analysis methods, we posit that the patterns of tourism environmental efficiency differ through spatial associations, dynamic evolutions, and transition mechanisms. Our results indicate that there is a dynamic convergence trend of the overall differences in tourism environmental efficiency in China from 2000 to 2020 where a significant clustering phenomenon is observed in space and the level of spatial clustering gradually tends to be stable. In terms of local spatial structures and the dependence directions of tourism environmental efficiency, China’s northwest and northeast regions are more volatile, while eastern coastal regions are relatively stable. Spatiotemporal leaps of tourism environmental efficiency show certain transfer inertia with strong spatial dependence or path-locked characteristics, among which most central and western regions always maintain high carbon emission attributes. These regions are the most limited in the synergy of tourism environmental efficiency. The spatiotemporal network patterns of tourism environmental efficiency are mainly based on positive correlations and show strong spatial integration. However, a few neighboring provinces still have a certain degree of spatiotemporal competition. Driving patterns of the spatiotemporal leaps in tourism environmental efficiency among regions differ greatly. The eastern coastal provinces are driven by population-urbanization constraint patterns, and the northwest, southwest, and northeast regions are driven by technology regulation patterns. From the southeast to the northwest, the leap in the environmental efficiency of China's tourism gradually shows a stepwise pattern of "congruent constraint-reverse development-congruent development.” Therefore, the government should not only consider these various driving/constraining factors but also combine different environmentally-efficient tourism clustering types and transition paths to emphasize differentiated environmental tourism measures. This can help avoid the closure of inter-provincial tourism policies through inter-regional synergy.

Impact of Agricultural Industrial Agglomeration on Agricultural Environmental Efficiency in China: A Spatial Econometric Analysis

In recent years, China has made remarkable progress in increasing yield at the expense of resource depletion, excessive consumption, and overexploitation. Improving agricultural environmental efficiency (AEE) is crucial to achieve agricultural modernization and facilitate a green transformation. Agricultural industrial agglomeration (AIA), as a main policy in industrial space organization, is an effective way to promote resource allocation optimization. This paper selects panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2000 to 2020 and employs the fixed-effects stochastic frontier analysis with hyperbolic distance function to measure AEE. Based on this, an empirical analysis is conducted to investigate the impact of AIA on AEE. The study finds that the average value of AEE is 0.909, which needs to be further improved. Meanwhile, AEE demonstrates obvious agglomeration characteristics and positive correlations with space. AIA exerts an inverted U-shaped effect on AEE in local and neighboring regions. Therefore, this paper believes that to improve AEE, it is essential to carry out dynamic and differentiated strategies of industrial agglomeration, ensuring the level of AIA remains within a reasonable range and effectively eliminates the congestion effect.

Effect of mandatory cleaner production audits on manufacturing firms’ environmental efficiency in China: Renovation or innovation?

Technological innovation is an important solution that can help improve environmental efficiency. However, the role of technological renovation in enhancing environmental efficiency has been ignored. This study provided initial evidence of the effects of cleaner production audits in China on manufacturing firms' environmental efficiency, which was measured by the emissions of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand per total output. Cleaner production audits were used as exogenous shocks. Their impact was estimated using the staggered difference-in-difference method combined with samples of ever-treated or never-treated firms using propensity score matching. The findings showed that firms that conducted cleaner production audits (vs. those that did not) experienced 4.7% and 11.9% reductions in the emission intensities of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand, respectively. Cleaner production audit implementation significantly improved firms' environmental efficiency. Additionally, a heterogeneous analysis showed that non-heavy polluters, small and medium-sized firms, and non-state-owned firms demonstrated the most improvement in environmental efficiency. Finally, the mechanism analysis results showed that firms' technological renovation in the production process is the main solution for improving environmental efficiency. This is a feasible and cost-effective way of reducing resource consumption and pollutant emissions. Accordingly, a cleaner production audit plan for different countries should be formulated with a focus on technological renovation in the production process. It should entail clean-cut incentives to stimulate firms to perform technological innovation, thereby continuously improving firms' environmental efficiency. This study sheds light on the environmental impact of cleaner production audits and regulated firms’ choices between technological renovation and innovation.

Research on the Influence Mechanism of Factor Misallocation on the Transformation Efficiency of Resource-Based Cities Based on the Optimization Direction Function Calculation Method

Reasonable evaluation of the transformation efficiency of resource-based cities can provide a reliable basis for correcting factor misallocation and optimizing factor allocation. This study improves the directional distance function from the aspects of direction vector endogeneity, relative distance and exogenous weight. Based on the improved model, the data of China’s prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2018 are used to measure and compare the transformation efficiency of resource-based cities and non-resource-based cities. By setting different exogenous weights, the transformation efficiency considering the total factor and the transformation efficiency only considering the energy factor are obtained. Further comparative analysis shows that the two transformation efficiencies of resource-based cities are lower than those of non-resource-based cities, and the two keep the same change trend. Whether it is a resource-based city or a non-resource-based city, the level of transformation efficiency that only considers energy factors is lower. Further, this study decomposes the transformation efficiency of resource-based cities according to the three dimensions of transformation efficiency and finds that the energy efficiency, output efficiency and environmental efficiency of China’s resource-based cities are different, and the transformation efficiency in the three dimensions of energy conservation, economic growth and environmental friendliness is also different.

Role of green finance and regional environmental efficiency in China

High-quality green finance development and environmental efficiency are made possible through economic growth. This study examines the factors affecting investments in green finance and regional environmental efficiency in China from 2008 to 2020, using the GMM model. Results show that green financing positively impacts energy usage restructuring at the national level. However, the impact is limited, despite positive coefficients between financial growth, energy prices, and energy usage patterns. In the central area, green financial development benefits energy usage structure, while in the eastern region, economic and industrial development have little effect. The study provides strategic recommendations for China's green funding to support the adaptation of energy use structures.

Exploring the impact of “double carbon target” on environmental efficiency of coal cities in China

Chinese government proposed the “Double Carbon Target” (DCT) in 2020 to deal with the increasing global warming crisis. In this regard, the study identifies temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of environmental efficiency through the DEA-SBM model and further explores the impact of DCT on the environmental efficiency of coal cities using scenario analysis method. Empirical results show that: 1) Both economic efficiency and environmental efficiency of China’s coal cities are first rising and then falling during the period 2003–2022, and the gap between coal cities and non-coal cities was very small before 2011, but it begins to be enlarged after 2011. The main reason is environmental regulation has exerted a significant impact on coal cities; 2) the difference in environmental efficiency among coal cities is huge due to their policies for supporting renewable energy. Some cities have broken carbon lock-in by the favorite policy for renewable energy, while others have been trapped into path dependence on the coal-related industry; 3) generally, the more amount of emission reduction required, the lower the environmental efficiency of coal cities in the carbon neutralization scenario. Furthermore, some cities rich of renewable energy resources, such as Erdos, and Xuzhou, still have better environmental performance under different carbon neutralization scenarios, while others will encounter many transformation barriers and even may cause a social crisis. Therefore, it is suggested that some coal cities in northwest China can vigorously develop solar energy to improve environmental efficiency.

FDI, financial market development and nonlinearities of energy and environmental efficiency in China: Evidence from both parametric and nonparametric models

This paper analyzes the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on energy and environmental efficiency considering all the inputs and outputs in the production process. To avoid model misspecifications, both parametric and nonparametric techniques are employed to investigate the heterogeneous impacts of FDI across cities with different financial market development levels. In the absence of endogeneity problems, we find that the impact of FDI on energy and environmental efficiency is closely related to the financial market development, which can determine the local absorption capacity of FDI. The impact can be positive only when the degree of financial market development surpasses a critical value. Our findings thus highlight the necessity to increase the local absorption capacity of FDI if policymakers wish to use FDI as a tool to increase energy and environmental efficiency in cities.

Energy and environmental efficiency of China's regional electric power industry by considering renewable energy constraints

The renewable electricity quota standard (RES) policy plays an important role in achieving sustainable and green development targets. Thus, it is essential to measure the sustainability of the electric power sectors in the context of RES. In terms of the energy and environmental efficiency (EEE) measurements, few studies divided energy inputs into renewable and non-renewable energy or explored the restricted problem of minimizing resource summation. To fill these gaps, we propose an improved fix-sum energy input data envelopment analysis (FSIDEA) model based on the adjustment strategy of weighted sum minimization of renewable energy inputs. The assurance region (AR) restriction and renewable energy input sum constraint (IC) are, respectively, imposed on the FSIDEA model to achieve the common equilibrium effective frontier (EEF). Finally, this study assesses the EEE of the electric power sectors in China's 30 main regions based on the common EEF. The result reveals that Beijing and Shanghai can be selected as benchmarks after efficiency comparison. In addition, our proposed model can compressively rank all decision-making units (DMUs) compared with traditional efficiency models.

The impact of quality of life on industrial and agricultural production and environmental efficiency in China's provinces

AbstractWhile most related topics focus on industrial production, economics, and environmental pollution, few studies discuss industrial production, economic development, environmental pollution, and quality of life together, and those that do fail to recognize how QoL influences agriculture and industry development issues. This research thus takes QoL as an exogenous variable and places agricultural production efficiency and industrial production efficiency as two parallel stages into one stage. The finding is that its addition modifies the overall efficiency of the region, as none of the 30 provinces has reached the efficiency frontier, and there is room for improvement in all of them.

Environmental Efficiency Evaluation of Construction Waste Generation Based on Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist Index

The rapid development of urbanization in China in recent years has resulted in the production of large amounts of construction waste, which has placed certain constraints on the sustainable development of the construction industry. This study measures the environmental efficiency of construction waste generated in China from static and dynamic perspectives using the data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist index with data from 30 Chinese provinces during the period from 2011 to 2020. The results showed that, from a static perspective, the environmental efficiency of China’s construction waste generation has been on a generally declining trend year by year, and the overall level is still not too high. At the regional level, there is a stepwise decline in the eastern, central, northeastern, and western regions. From a dynamic point of view, the overall Malmquist index in China has an average value of 1.016, indicating that the level of environmental efficiency of construction waste generation in China is in a state of improvement. From a regional perspective, the Malmquist index is highest in the east, indicating that the level of environmental efficiency of construction waste generation in the eastern region is developing well.

Can Agricultural Productive Services Promote Agricultural Environmental Efficiency in China?

Agricultural productive services are important paths to realize the development of green agriculture, while the effect of agricultural productive services on the agricultural environment and its influencing mechanism are not yet clear. With the panel data of agricultural production in China from 2004 to 2019, by using multi-output stochastic frontier analysis with an output-oriented distance function, this study investigates agricultural environmental efficiency based on net carbon sinks. Then, this study explores the effect of agricultural productive services on agricultural environmental efficiency and its mechanisms by adopting ordinary least squares regression with fixed-effect panel model, causal steps approach, and spatial econometric method. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, agricultural productive services enhance agricultural productivity and agricultural environment by optimizing inputs and increasing outputs, and thus improve agricultural environmental efficiency. This result holds steadily after using instrumental variables to deal with endogeneity, changing the measurement of the dependent and independent variables, and subdividing the sample. Secondly, the pathways of agricultural productive services affecting agricultural environmental efficiency are mainly reflected in technology progress, planting structure adjustment, factor allocation optimization, and spatial spillover. Thirdly, due to the law of diminishing marginal returns, the impact of agricultural productive services on agricultural environmental efficiency is more significant when the level of agricultural productive services is relatively low. To improve agricultural environmental efficiency, we suggest implementing different productive service strategies in different regions, strengthening information integration, and improving infrastructure.

The Role of Foreign Technology Transfer in Improving Environmental Efficiency: Empirical Evidence From China’s High-Tech Industry

In recent years, China’s high-tech industry has made remarkable technological progress, but it has also brought serious environmental pollution, which has aroused great concern about its environmental efficiency. Although foreign technology transfer is considered as important ways for technological progress of the high-tech industry, the existing research on what role foreign technology transfer plays in improving the environmental efficiency of the high-tech industry is still lacking. Based on China’s interprovincial panel data from 2008 to 2017, we evaluated the environmental efficiency of the high-tech industry using the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model with undesirable outputs. We then used the Tobit model to analyze the impact of technology introduction (TI) and foreign direct investment (FDI)—two major types of foreign technology transfer—on the environmental efficiency of the high-tech industry. The results of the super-efficiency SBM model show that the average environmental efficiency of China’s high-tech industry is only 0.4375. Except for Guangdong, Shanghai, and Beijing, most of the provinces in China have low environmental efficiency. The provinces with high environmental efficiency are in the eastern region, whereas the provinces with low environmental efficiency are concentrated in the central and western regions. Tobit regression results confirm the difference in the role of technology import and foreign direct investment in the improvement of environmental efficiency in China’s high-tech industry. Technology introduction has a significant positive impact on environmental efficiency. FDI also promotes environmental efficiency, but it is not statistically significant. These findings were confirmed by a series of robust tests. This study not only deepens our understanding of the environmental efficiency of China’s high-tech industry but also expands the theoretical research on the relationship between technology transfer and environmental efficiency.

Measuring environmental efficiency and technology inequality of China's power sector: methodological comparisons among data envelopment analysis, free disposable hull, and super free disposable hull models.

China's power sector has received great research attention because of its large energy consumption and CO2 emissions. This study assesses the environmental efficiency and technology inequality of China's power sector from 2008 to 2017. Methodologically, this study proposes a non-radial FDH (free disposable hull) model and a super non-radial FDH model. The non-radial FDH model relaxes the convex assumption and captures all inefficiencies of inputs, desirable output and undesirable output. The super non-radial model is capable of discriminating efficient power sectors and always has feasible solutions. We also compare their performance with the non-radialdata envelopment analysis (DEA) model. The main conclusions are summarized as follows: First, the environmental efficiency of China's power sector has experienced steady growth; the power sectors in the east region outperform those in other regions. Second, the proposed FDH models are more applicable and reliable than the non-radial DEA model in efficiency measurement of China's power sector, due to the indivisibility of labor. Third, there has been growing technology inequality and the main driving factor determining technology inequality is the inter-region efficiency Gini coefficient. To improve environmental efficiency and eliminate technology inequality, the government should mainly solve the issue of excessive labor input and establish a free technology market for technology trading.

Evaluation and Dynamic Evolution of the Total Factor Environmental Efficiency in China’s Mining Industry

The mining industry plays an extremely important strategic role in China’s economic and social development. In the new era of pursuing circular/green/efficient development, the evaluation of the total factor environmental efficiency (TFEE) of China’s mining industry is essential for alleviating resource waste and environmental pollution. The Epsilon-Based Measure (EBM) model effectively solves the shortcomings of radial and non-radial DEA models. In addition, the Malmquist–Luenberger (ML) index can measure the dynamic change of efficiency value. Combining the EBM model and the ML productivity index, this paper evaluates the TFEE from the static and dynamic perspective in China’s 31 provincial mining industries over the period 2007–2016. The Theil index is employed to reveal the root of the overall provincial TFEE gap (OGTFEE) in China’s mining industry. The results show that the average total factor static environmental efficiency (TFSEE) of China’s provincial mining industry exhibits a low score of 0.6589 and with significant spatio-temporal differences. The provincial TFEE gap within four major areas (WGTFEE), especially that in east and west areas, is the main cause of the OGTFEE in China’s mining industry. Technical change contributes more to the TFEE decline in China’s mining industry. There are differences in improving the TFEE among China’s 31 provincial mining industries, and corresponding countermeasures can be formulated accordingly. This study provides theoretical and practical basis for the clean and green development of China’s mining industry.

Threshold effects in the relationship between internet development and express delivery industry environmental efficiency

Improving the express industry's environmental efficiency is of practical significance to green and sustainable economic development. The development of internet may help achieve this goal. However, previous studies have not provided a consistent result about the relationship between internet development and the express industry's environmental efficiency. This paper provides a deeper understanding of this relationship by analyzing the threshold effects from the perspectives of road network density, openness to international trade and competition, and e-commerce level. Based on Chinese provincial data from 2012 to 2017, we first use a range directional data envelopment analysis model to evaluate the express industry environmental efficiency. Then, a threshold model is constructed to analyze the threshold effects in the relationship between internet development and environmental efficiency. The results show that: (1) The impact of internet development on the express industry's environmental efficiency shows a single threshold effect as road network density increases, which indicates that internet development significantly improves that environmental efficiency when the road network density is above a threshold value. (2) The impact of internet development on express industry environmental performance shows a dual-threshold effect as the degree of openness increases. (3) There is also a dual-threshold effect in this relationship as the proportion of e-commerce business transactions increases, but this effect is not significant. Based on these results, suggestions are given for the express industry to improve its environmental efficiency in China.