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State transition of carbon emission efficiency in China: empirical analysis based on three-stage SBM and Markov chain models

  • Environmental Quality, Natural Resources and Global Value Chain
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Abstract

Assessing China’s carbon emission efficiency (CEE) and analyzing efficiency state transition trends are necessary to accelerate the promotion of carbon emission reduction and achieve low carbon goals. This study evaluates China’s economic and social environments by using the entropy weight method. The CEE of 30 Chinese provinces from 2006 to 2020 is measured using the three-stage slack-based model with an undesirable output. Then, this study introduces a Markov chain to explore the state transition trend of China’s CEE. The research conclusions are as follows. First, compared with the social environment, the economic environment has a more significant impact on CEE. Second, the CEE of the eastern region is the highest, followed by that of the central region and the western region, which has the worst CEE. Third, the inefficiency of the central and western regions pulls down the overall CEE of China. Fourth, the state of China’s CEE is gradually shifting to a high level; however, achieving a leapfrog shift is difficult.

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The data used in this research are available by the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

The work is financially supported by National Natural Science Funds of China (Nos. 72174053, 71871153, 71921001, 71971203), the Four Batch Talent Programs of China, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WK2040000027), Anhui Philosophy and Social Science Foundation (AHSKY2021D147) and the sponsorship of the Tang Scholar of Soochow University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, People’s Republic of China

    Jie Wu & Ruizeng Zhao

  2. School of Economics and Management, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, 621000, Sichuan, China

    Ruizeng Zhao

  3. School of Business and Dongwu Think Tank, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215012, Jiangsu, China

    Jiasen Sun

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  1. Jie Wu
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  2. Ruizeng Zhao
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Contributions

Jie Wu: conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, and writing—original draft. Ruizeng Zhao: methodology, formal analysis, and writing—original draft. Jiasen Sun: funding acquisition, investigation, and supervision.

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Correspondence to Jiasen Sun.

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Wu, J., Zhao, R. & Sun, J. State transition of carbon emission efficiency in China: empirical analysis based on three-stage SBM and Markov chain models. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 117050–117060 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24885-7

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