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Environmental growth convergence among Chinese regions

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  • Boussemart, Jean Philippe
  • Leleu, Hervé
  • Shen, Zhiyang

Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century, numerous studies have analyzed Chinese economic development to gauge whether China's rapid growth is sustainable. Most of these studies focused on assessing total factor productivity (TFP) in Chinese mainland provinces but suffered from methodological weaknesses by assuming constant returns to scale (CRS) for the production frontier and/or incorrectly modeling variables returns to scale (VRS) technology taking into account bad output such as carbon dioxide emissions. Our paper offers a right non-parametric programming framework based on weak disposability and VRS assumptions to estimate environmental growth convergence among Chinese regions characterized by size heterogeneity. We explicitly separate regional efficiency gaps into two components: The first studies the technical catching-up process on each one (technical effect), and the second reveals convergence or divergence in the combinations of input and output among regions (structural effect). Moreover, carbon shadow price levels for provinces can be derived through the dual version of our activity analysis framework. Our empirical work focuses on 30 Chinese regions from 1997 to 2010. The results emphasize that environmental growth convergence among regions has mainly relied on the structural effect. We find that the structural effect largely depends on the pollution cost convergence and not on the evolution of the relative prices of capital or labor. The carbon shadow price is increasing at an annual rate of 2.5% and was evaluated around 864 yuan per ton in 2010 in China while regional estimates show significant disparities at the beginning of the period.

Suggested Citation

  • Boussemart, Jean Philippe & Leleu, Hervé & Shen, Zhiyang, 2015. "Environmental growth convergence among Chinese regions," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-18.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:34:y:2015:i:c:p:1-18
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2015.03.003
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    Cited by:

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    7. Wenyin Cheng & Zhusong Yang & Xia Pan & Tomas Baležentis & Xueli Chen, 2020. "Evolution of Carbon Shadow Prices in China’s Industrial Sector during 2003–2017: A By-Production Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-14, January.
    8. Junwei Ma & Jianhua Wang & Philip Szmedra, 2020. "Does Environmental Innovation Improve Environmental Productivity?—An Empirical Study Based on the Spatial Panel Data Model of Chinese Urban Agglomerations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-18, August.
    9. Li, Tianxiang & Baležentis, Tomas & Makutėnienė, Daiva & Streimikiene, Dalia & Kriščiukaitienė, Irena, 2016. "Energy-related CO2 emission in European Union agriculture: Driving forces and possibilities for reduction," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 682-694.
    10. Tsun Se Cheong & Yanrui Wu & Jianxin Wu, 2016. "Evolution of carbon dioxide emissions in Chinese cities: trends and transitional dynamics," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 357-377, July.
    11. Shen, Zhiyang & Baležentis, Tomas & Chen, Xueli & Valdmanis, Vivian, 2018. "Green growth and structural change in Chinese agricultural sector during 1997–2014," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 83-96.
    12. Guangming Rao & Bin Su & Jinlian Li & Yong Wang & Yanhua Zhou & Zhaolin Wang, 2019. "Carbon Sequestration Total Factor Productivity Growth and Decomposition: A Case of the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-28, November.
    13. Yang, Jun & Zhang, Tengfei & Sheng, Pengfei & Shackman, Joshua D., 2016. "Carbon dioxide emissions and interregional economic convergence in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 672-680.
    14. Zhensheng Chen & Xueli Chen & Tomas Baležentis & Xiaoqing Gan & Vivian Valdmanis, 2020. "Productivity change and its driving forces in Chinese healthcare sector," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(12), pages 1-16, December.
    15. Yongzhong Jiang & Xueli Chen & Vivian Valdmanis & Tomas Baležentis, 2019. "Evaluating Economic and Environmental Performance of the Chinese Industry Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-17, November.
    16. Zhiyang Shen & Vivian Valdmanis, 2020. "Identifying the contribution to hospital performance among Chinese regions by an aggregate directional distance function," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 142-152, March.
    17. Chen, Lei & Wang, Ying-Ming & Lai, Fujun, 2017. "Semi-disposability of undesirable outputs in data envelopment analysis for environmental assessments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 260(2), pages 655-664.
    18. Gao, Yuning & Zhang, Meichen & Zheng, Jinghai, 2021. "Accounting and determinants analysis of China's provincial total factor productivity considering carbon emissions," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Growth convergence; Catching-up; Undesirable output; Carbon dioxide emissions; Shadow price; Weak disposability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • O44 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Environment and Growth
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

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