Toward smart growth? A spatial econometric analysis of the environmental efficiency at the provincial-level China

As a response to the heavy environmental tolls, shifting to a “green, low-carbon development” model has been written in China’s 12th and 13th five-year plans and endorsed as a basic policy. Although China’s economy is... [ view full abstract ]

As a response to the heavy environmental tolls, shifting to a “green, low-carbon development” model has been written in China’s 12th and 13th five-year plans and endorsed as a basic policy. Although China’s economy is on the fast track for decades, its environmental efficiency is less so. This paper investigates the environmental efficiency of the economy by using the provincial level data in the past two decades, depicting a temporal and spatial distribution patterns of environmental efficiency in such period. Subsequently, spatial economic models are adopted in the analysis so as to identify potential variables that are responsible for the geographical clustering patterns of the provincial-level environmental efficiency. As defined by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the environmental efficiency represents the environmental pressure it brings in a unit of economic production. We take the waste water, solid waste, SO2 emissions and PM emissions etc. to calculate the environmental pressure in our formula. Also, with the help of Arc GIS and Geoda, we will first get the Moran’s I value of the environmental efficiency of all the provincial units in China and then visualize the clustering patterns in a “local indicator of spatial association” (LISA) maps. In addition, we will use a spatial lag model and a spatial error model (SLM and SEM) to specify what factors contribute to such spatial and temporal distributions. In the end, we will also give policy suggestions for the “green and low-carbon” development strategies based on our findings.