Environmental efficiency and its distribution dynamics in Chinese cities

摘要

This paper investigates environmental efficiency and its distribution dynamics in Chinese cities. The analyses are applied the meta-frontier data envelopment analysis and the continuous dynamic distribution approach together with panel data of 286 Chinese cities at the prefecture and above-prefecture levels. The results show that during the period of 2002-2011, the average environmental efficiency in Chinese cities is well below the production frontier. The coastal cities show better performance than the central and western cities; large and extra-large cities are more efficient than small and medium cities; and the environmental efficiency for the 'key' cities is slightly better than that for the 'non-key' cities. The spatial dynamic distribution analyses indicate that the environmental efficiency of Chinese cities tends to converge. To improve environmental efficiency in the future, the government should pay more attention to the central cities, medium and large size cities in western China, and the non-key cities. Abbreviations: CPI- Consumer price index; DEA- Date envelopment analysis; DMU- Decision making unit; GDP- Gross domestic product; GMI -Group- frontier managerial inefficiency; IPCC-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; MTR- Meta- technology gap ratio; NTP- Net transition probability; PAA- Prefecture and above-prefecture levels; PIM Perpetual inventory method; 5FA Stochastic frontier analysis; TGI Technology gap inefficiency