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Eco-efficiency evaluation and productivity change of Yangtze River Economic Belt in China: a meta-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger index perspective

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Abstract

Using city-level panel data for 2008–2017, this paper uses the super-efficiency slack-based measure (SBM) model to measure the eco-efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). Based on the group-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) productivity index and meta-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger (MML) productivity index, the driving forces of the total factor ecological productivity are analyzed. The results show the following: (1) The overall eco-efficiency in the YREB was 0.599 and remained stable during the study period, showing only a fluctuating and slightly upward trend. (2) The annual average GML index was 1.091 in the YREB, and the main reason for the improvement in the GML index was technological progress. (3) The average annual growth of MML index in the YREB was 8.2%, and the change of the best practice gap ratio was the main reason for the MML index increase. (4) The technical gap ratio indicates that the gap between group-frontier and meta-frontier is narrowing slightly, which is conducive to the coordinated development of the ecology in the YREB.

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Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article.

Notes

  1. 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020) http://www.12371.cn/special/sswgh/.

  2. Development Plan of the YREB http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2016-09/12/content_5107501.htm.

  3. China City Statistical Yearbook http://data.cnki.net/yearbook/Single/N2019070173.

  4. China Statistical Yearbook http://data.cnki.net/yearbook/Single/N2019110002.

  5. China Energy Statistical Yearbook http://data.cnki.net/yearbook/Single/N2019080025.

  6. Statistical Yearbook of each province http://data.stats.gov.cn.

  7. National New Urbanization Plan (2014–2020) http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2014-03/16/content_2640075.htm.

  8. Development Plan of the YMUA area http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2015-04/16/content_2848120.htm.

  9. Development Plan of the CYUA area http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2016-04/15/content_5064431.htm.

  10. Development Plan of the YDUA area http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2019-12/01/content_5457442.htm.

Abbreviations

DEA:

Data envelopment analysis

DMU:

Decision-making unit

YREB:

Yangtze River Economic Belt

YDUA:

Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration

YMUA:

Urban Agglomeration in the Middle Reach of the Yangtze River

CYUA:

Cheng-Yu Urban Agglomeration

TE:

Technical efficiency

BPR:

Best practice gap ratio

TGR:

Technical gap ratio

TEC:

Change of technical efficiency

BPC:

Change of the best practice gap ratio

TGRC:

Change of technical gap ratio

EC:

Efficiency change

TC:

Technical change

PEC:

Pure efficiency change

PTC:

Pure technology change

SEC:

Scale efficiency change

STC:

Scale technology change

PTCU:

Pure technology catch-up index

FCU:

Frontier catch-up index

MPI:

Malmquist productivity index

ML:

Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index

GML:

Group-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index

MML:

Meta-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank editors and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Funding

The research reported in this paper was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71871106) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. JUSRP1809ZD; 2019JDZD06; JUSRP321016). The work was also sponsored by the Major Projects of Educational Science Fund of Jiangsu Province in 13th Five-Year Plan (No. A/2016/01); the Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Universities of Jiangsu Province (No. 2018SJZDI051); the Major Projects of Philosophy and Social Science Research of Guizhou Province (No. 21GZZB32); the Projects of Chinese Academic Degrees and Graduate Education (No. 2020ZDB2); and the Major Projects of the 14th Five-Year Plan for Higher Education Scientific Research of Jiangsu Higher Education Association (No. ZDGG02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, 214122, People’s Republic of China

    Yuhong Wang, Youyang Ren & Wuyong Qian

  2. College of Tourism and Service Management, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, People’s Republic of China

    Dongdong Wu

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Contributions

All the authors contributed to the study conception and design. Yuhong Wang: methodology, writing-original draft, writing-reviewing and editing, supervision, funding acquisition; Youyang Ren: conceptualization, software, writing-reviewing and editing; Dongdong Wu: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, writing-original draft; Wuyong Qian: data curation, software, writing-reviewing and editing. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dongdong Wu.

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Wang, Y., Ren, Y., Wu, D. et al. Eco-efficiency evaluation and productivity change of Yangtze River Economic Belt in China: a meta-frontier Malmquist-Luenberger index perspective. Energy Efficiency 16, 23 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-023-10105-9

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