School of Economics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
Independent Researcher, Scarborough, ON M1L 4P2, Canada.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 16;17(10):3485. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17103485.
Green development is an important way to meet the challenges of ecological and environmental protection and economic growth, as well as an inevitable choice to realize China's sustainable development in the new era. The Chinese economic system is such that local government competition has become a key factor affecting regional green development under the current leadership. Based on the inter-provincial panel data of 30 provinces in mainland China from 1997 to 2017, this paper uses the total-factor non-radial directional distance function and slack-based measure data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) to measure the green development efficiency of the provinces. Additionally, it also uses the Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index to decompose green development efficiency and analyzes its internal driving factors. Finally, taking environmental regulation as a mediating variable, this paper empirically analyzes the influence mechanism of local government competition on green development efficiency from three perspectives including growth competition, fiscal competition and investment competition. The study found that: the green development efficiency of Chinese regions showed a downward trend, with significant regional differences; technological progress is the key factor to improve the efficiency of green development, and its role gradually decreases from eastern to western and central regions; pure technical efficiency has become a bottleneck restricting the improvement of green development efficiency, while scale efficiency shows significant regional differences; the growth competition, fiscal competition and investment competition of local government all have a significant inhibitory effect on the efficiency of green development. This paper puts forward policy suggestions supporting enterprise technology research and development, optimizing energy conservation and emission reduction as well as improving the local government performance evaluation system for green development.
绿色发展是应对生态环境保护和经济增长挑战的重要途径，也是实现新时代中国可持续发展的必然选择。中国经济体制下，地方政府竞争已成为当前领导下影响区域绿色发展的关键因素。本文利用 1997 年至 2017 年中国大陆 30 个省份的省级面板数据，采用全要素非径向方向距离函数和基于松弛的测度数据包络分析（SBM-DEA）方法，测算了各省的绿色发展效率。此外，还利用 Malmquist-Luenberger（ML）指数对绿色发展效率进行了分解，并分析了其内部驱动因素。最后，本文以环境规制为中介变量，从增长竞争、财政竞争和投资竞争三个方面实证分析了地方政府竞争对绿色发展效率的影响机制。研究发现：中国区域的绿色发展效率呈下降趋势，且存在显著的区域差异；技术进步是提高绿色发展效率的关键因素，其作用从东部向西部和中部逐渐减弱；纯技术效率已成为制约绿色发展效率提高的瓶颈，而规模效率则表现出显著的区域差异；地方政府的增长竞争、财政竞争和投资竞争均对绿色发展效率有显著的抑制作用。本文提出了支持企业技术研发、优化节能减排以及完善地方政府绿色发展绩效评价体系等政策建议。
