Journal of Management World. 2022, (02) Core

Economic Restructuring, Green Technical Progress, and Low-Carbon Transition Development in China:An Empirical Investigation Based on the Overall Technology Frontier and Spatial Spillover EffectChinese Full Text

Shao Shuai;Fan Meiting;Yang Lili;School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology;School of Urban and Regional Science, Institute of Finance and Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics;School of International Economics and Trade, Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance;

Abstract: The report released at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further clarifies the ambitious targets of promoting green development, constructing ecological civilization, and building a "beautiful China". Advancing low-carbon transition development is the prerequisite of achieving such targets. Undoubtedly, improving the carbon emission performance（CEP） via a couple of engines, i.e., economic restructuring and green technical progress, is an inevitable choice for China’s low-carbon transition development. Aiming at remedying the biased measure of the CEP in existing literature, this paper proposes a new efficiency-measure model by combining the concept of the overall technology frontier and the non-oriented and non-radial directional distance function under the framework of the data envelope analysis（DEA）. We apply such a novel DEA model to estimate and decompose the CEP of China’s 30 provincial-level regions during 1996-2018. Furthermore, using the spatial Durbin model, we investigate the direct and indirect effects of various factors characterizing economic structure adjustment and green technical progress on the CEP. The results show that China’s CEP was relatively high during the 9th "FiveYear Plan"（FYP） period then declined significantly, and began to rise again from the beginning of the 11 th FYP. Regarding the effects of various input and output factors, the carbon-reduction effect and the input-saving effect play vital roles in improving the CEP. Because of the competitive effect, the demonstration effect, and the economic correction effect, the CEP shows a significantly positive spatial spillover effect, i.e., the improvement in the local CEP can raise the CEP of its spatially-correlated regions. The optimization of economic structure reflected by industrial structure, production factor structure and energy consumption structure presents a "structure dividend" in promoting the CEP of both local region and its spatially-correlated regions. A U-shaped curve relationship is found between urbanization and the local CEP, while an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between urbanization and the CEP of the spatially-correlated regions. Attributing to the market failure and the drawbacks of command-and-control policy tools, the adjustment of ownership structure has no positive effect on the CEP. The green technical progress reflected by energy efficiency and the innovation ability of green technologies shows a "technological dividend" in ameliorating the CEP of both local region and its spatially-correlated regions, but the indirect effect is not robust. Finally, we suggest that the synergic efforts should be made in multiple aspects, including upgrading industrial structure, optimizing energy consumption structure, improving factor market, achieving breakthroughs in green innovations, promoting intensive urbanization, and strengthening regional cooperation. Only by doing these, a millennium project of low-carbon transition development can be fulfilled.

Keywords：

carbon emission performance; economic restructuring; green technical progress; low-carbon transition development; spatial durbin model;

DOI：
10.19744/j.cnki.11-1235/f.2022.0031
Series：
(J) Economics ＆ Management; (B) Chemistry/ Metallurgy/ Environment/ Mine Industry
Subject：
Environment Science and Resources Utilization; Economic Reform
Classification Code：
F124.3;F121.3;X321

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Economic Restructuring, Green Technical Progress, and Low-Carbon Transition Development in China:An Empirical Investigation Based on the Overall Technology Frontier and Spatial Spillover EffectChinese Full Text

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