IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v269y2018i1p51-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental efficiency and economic growth of China: A Ray slack-based model analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Song, Malin
  • Peng, Jun
  • Wang, Jianlin
  • Zhao, Jiajia

Abstract

The Chinese economy has been experiencing rapid growth since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy. However, at the same time, it faces issues regarding resource savings and environmental protection, which are important aspects of the new industrialization. Therefore, this study conducts data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate the environmental efficiency of Chinese regions. Certain existing DEA models account for undesirable outputs and do not elucidate the weak disposable relationship between undesirable and desirable outputs. Thus, polar theory is introduced among the DEA modeling in this study. First, drawing on stochastic frontier analysis, Ray stochastic frontier analysis, and DEA, we propose a Ray slack-based model (RSBM) to evaluate provincial environmental efficiencies in China from 2004 to 2012. Subsequently, an RSBM-Malmquist–Luenberger (total factor productivity) index is structured. Finally, economic growth, environmental efficiency, and energy consumption are analyzed using spatial panel econometrics. As this study treats industrial waste as undesirable outputs, the RSBM results show that the environmental efficiencies in the east are the highest, while those in the central regions are the lowest. The spatial econometric analysis reveals that the ratios of direct to total elasticity and those of direct to total effect for capital, labor, and energy input variables are fixed. Furthermore, the study provides policy implications and suggestions for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Song, Malin & Peng, Jun & Wang, Jianlin & Zhao, Jiajia, 2018. "Environmental efficiency and economic growth of China: A Ray slack-based model analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(1), pages 51-63.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:269:y:2018:i:1:p:51-63
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.03.073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221717303041
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2017.03.073?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Chunhua, 2013. "Changing energy intensity of economies in the world and its decomposition," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 637-644.
    2. Song, Malin & An, Qingxian & Zhang, Wei & Wang, Zeya & Wu, Jie, 2012. "Environmental efficiency evaluation based on data envelopment analysis: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 4465-4469.
    3. Cole, Matthew A. & Elliott, Robert J.R. & Okubo, Toshihiro & Zhou, Ying, 2013. "The carbon dioxide emissions of firms: A spatial analysis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 290-309.
    4. Riccardi, R. & Oggioni, G. & Toninelli, R., 2012. "Efficiency analysis of world cement industry in presence of undesirable output: Application of data envelopment analysis and directional distance function," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 140-152.
    5. Alwyn Young, 2000. "Gold into Base Metals: Productivity Growth in the People's Republic of China during the Reform Period," NBER Working Papers 7856, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Cem Ertur & Wilfried Koch, 2007. "Growth, technological interdependence and spatial externalities: theory and evidence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 1033-1062.
    7. William F. Fox & Brian C. Hill & Matthew N. Murray, 2015. "Vertical Competition, Horizontal Competition, and Mobile Capital," Public Finance Review, , vol. 43(4), pages 431-457, July.
    8. Maarten Allers & J. Elhorst, 2005. "Tax Mimicking and Yardstick Competition Among Local Governments in the Netherlands," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(4), pages 493-513, August.
    9. Falavigna, Greta & Ippoliti, Roberto & Manello, Alessandro & Ramello, Giovanni B., 2015. "Judicial productivity, delay and efficiency: A Directional Distance Function (DDF) approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 240(2), pages 592-601.
    10. Blázquez Gomez, Leticia M. & Filippini, Massimo & Heimsch, Fabian, 2013. "Regional impact of changes in disposable income on Spanish electricity demand: A spatial econometric analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 58-66.
    11. Managi, Shunsuke & Opaluch, James J. & Jin, Di & Grigalunas, Thomas A., 2006. "Stochastic frontier analysis of total factor productivity in the offshore oil and gas industry," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 204-215, November.
    12. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    13. Barbara Dettori & Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci, 2012. "Total Factor Productivity, Intangible Assets and Spatial Dependence in the European Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(10), pages 1401-1416, November.
    14. Luc Anselin, 2003. "Spatial Externalities, Spatial Multipliers, And Spatial Econometrics," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 153-166, April.
    15. Yeh, Tsai-lien & Chen, Tser-yieth & Lai, Pei-ying, 2010. "A comparative study of energy utilization efficiency between Taiwan and China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 2386-2394, May.
    16. Irz, Xavier T. & Stevenson, James R., 2012. "Efficiency and Farm Size in Philippine Aquaculture. Analysis in a Ray Production Frontier Framework," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 1(2), pages 1-24, August.
    17. Nakano, Makiko & Managi, Shunsuke, 2008. "Regulatory reforms and productivity: An empirical analysis of the Japanese electricity industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 201-209, January.
    18. Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Pasurka, Carl A., 2007. "Environmental production functions and environmental directional distance functions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1055-1066.
    19. George E. Battese & Greg S. Corra, 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 169-179, December.
    20. Bhattacharyya, Aditi & Pal, Sudeshna, 2013. "Financial reforms and technical efficiency in Indian commercial banking: A generalized stochastic frontier analysis," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 109-117.
    21. Subodh Kumar & R. Robert Russell, 2002. "Technological Change, Technological Catch-up, and Capital Deepening: Relative Contributions to Growth and Convergence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 527-548, June.
    22. Daniel J. Henderson & R. Robert Russell, 2005. "Human Capital And Convergence: A Production-Frontier Approach ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1167-1205, November.
    23. Fukuyama, Hirofumi & Weber, William L., 2009. "A directional slacks-based measure of technical inefficiency," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 274-287, December.
    24. Mekaroonreung, Maethee & Johnson, Andrew L., 2014. "A nonparametric method to estimate a technical change effect on marginal abatement costs of U.S. coal power plants," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 45-55.
    25. Battese, George E. & Corra, Greg S., 1977. "Estimation Of A Production Frontier Model: With Application To The Pastoral Zone Of Eastern Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 21(3), pages 1-11, December.
    26. Seiford, Lawrence M. & Zhu, Joe, 2002. "Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 16-20, October.
    27. Daniel Tyteca, 1997. "Linear Programming Models for the Measurement of Environmental Performance of Firms—Concepts and Empirical Results," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 183-197, May.
    28. Neumayer, Eric & Plümper, Thomas, 2012. "Conditional spatial policy dependence: theory and model specification," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 44457, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    29. Tone, Kaoru, 2001. "A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 498-509, May.
    30. Wang, Tao & Watson, Jim, 2010. "Scenario analysis of China's emissions pathways in the 21st century for low carbon transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3537-3546, July.
    31. Scheel, Holger, 2001. "Undesirable outputs in efficiency valuations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 400-410, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arabi, Behrouz & Munisamy, Susila & Emrouznejad, Ali, 2015. "A new slacks-based measure of Malmquist–Luenberger index in the presence of undesirable outputs," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 29-37.
    2. Gómez-Calvet, Roberto & Conesa, David & Gómez-Calvet, Ana Rosa & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2014. "Energy efficiency in the European Union: What can be learned from the joint application of directional distance functions and slacks-based measures?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 137-154.
    3. César Salazar & Roberto Cárdenas-Retamal & Marcela Jaime, 2023. "Environmental efficiency in the salmon industry—an exploratory analysis around the 2007 ISA virus outbreak and subsequent regulations in Chile," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(8), pages 8107-8135, August.
    4. Zhang, Bin & Lu, Danting & He, Yan & Chiu, Yung-ho, 2018. "The efficiencies of resource-saving and environment: A case study based on Chinese cities," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 493-507.
    5. Jie Wu & Xiang Lu & Dong Guo & Liang Liang, 2017. "Slacks-Based Efficiency Measurements with Undesirable Outputs in Data Envelopment Analysis," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(04), pages 1005-1021, July.
    6. Xiaowei Song & Yongpei Hao & Xiaodong Zhu, 2015. "Analysis of the Environmental Efficiency of the Chinese Transportation Sector Using an Undesirable Output Slacks-Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-20, July.
    7. Tao Xu & Jianxin You & Hui Li & Luning Shao, 2020. "Energy Efficiency Evaluation Based on Data Envelopment Analysis: A Literature Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-20, July.
    8. Ma-Lin Song & Yuan-Xiang Zhou & Rong-Rong Zhang & Ron Fisher, 2017. "Environmental efficiency evaluation with left–right fuzzy numbers," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 697-714, October.
    9. Jie Wu & Qingyuan Zhu & Pengzhen Yin & Malin Song, 2017. "Measuring energy and environmental performance for regions in China by using DEA-based Malmquist indices," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 715-735, October.
    10. Ning Zhang & Jong-Dae Kim, 2014. "Measuring sustainability by Energy Efficiency Analysis for Korean Power Companies: A Sequential Slacks-Based Efficiency Measure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-13, March.
    11. Afzalinejad, Mohammad, 2020. "Reverse efficiency measures for environmental assessment in data envelopment analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Long, Xingle & Sun, Mei & Cheng, Faxin & Zhang, Jijian, 2017. "Convergence analysis of eco-efficiency of China’s cement manufacturers through unit root test of panel data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 709-717.
    13. Arabi, Behrouz & Munisamy, Susila & Emrouznejad, Ali & Shadman, Foroogh, 2014. "Power industry restructuring and eco-efficiency changes: A new slacks-based model in Malmquist–Luenberger Index measurement," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 132-145.
    14. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Poh, K.L., 2008. "A survey of data envelopment analysis in energy and environmental studies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 1-18, August.
    15. Long, Xingle & Wu, Chao & Zhang, Jijian & Zhang, Jing, 2018. "Environmental efficiency for 192 thermal power plants in the Yangtze River Delta considering heterogeneity: A metafrontier directional slacks-based measure approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 3962-3971.
    16. Özkara, Yücel & Atak, Mehmet, 2015. "Regional total-factor energy efficiency and electricity saving potential of manufacturing industry in Turkey," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(P1), pages 495-510.
    17. Gongbing Bi & Yan Luo & Jingjing Ding & Liang Liang, 2015. "Environmental performance analysis of Chinese industry from a slacks-based perspective," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 228(1), pages 65-80, May.
    18. Jiang, Lei & Zhou, Haifeng & He, Shixiong, 2021. "Does energy efficiency increase at the expense of output performance: Evidence from manufacturing firms in Jiangsu province, China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    19. Na Wang & Yongrok Choi, 2019. "Comparative Analysis of the Energy and CO 2 Emissions Performance and Technology Gaps in the Agglomerated Cities of China and South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-25, January.
    20. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:269:y:2018:i:1:p:51-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.