Environmental Efficiency Analysis of Urban Agglomerations in China: A Non-Parametric Meta-Frontier Approach

摘要

This paper studies the environmental efficiency of Chinese urban agglomerations (UAs) based on a non-parametric meta-frontier approach. We find most of UAs has a large gap and imbalance of environmental performance under meta-frontier. The meta-efficiencies of eastern and southern coastal areas are better than that of middle and western. Besides, the efficiency difference of cities in each UA is relatively small, which may be caused by the technology spillover effect. In addition, the average technology gap among most UAs exists but not so huge. Based on the findings, we provide specific suggestions for Chinese central and local governments.