Evaluation of the Level of Sustainable Development of Provinces in China from 2012 to 2018: A Study Based on the Improved Entropy Coefficient-TOPSIS Method

Yuqing Liao, Yongchao Ma, Jingliang Chen and Ruirui Liu
Additional contact information
Yuqing Liao: Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Yongchao Ma: College of Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108-6050, USA
Jingliang Chen: Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Ruirui Liu: School of Policing Studies, Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai 201701, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: Based on the definition and implication of sustainable development, this paper first constructed an evaluation indicator system for the sustainable development level of provinces in China, and performed a scientific evaluation on the sustainable development level based on official statistics from 2012 to 2018 by using the improved Entropy Coefficient-TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) method. The evaluation results showed that the eastern region of China has the highest level of sustainable development, with its two municipalities directly under the central government, Beijing and Shanghai, achieving the full score of 1.0000 in all evaluations, both ranking first among all the provinces. There were significant differences in the level of sustainable development across provinces in the central region, which were comparatively weaker in terms of environmental sustainability and science and technology sustainability, with four provinces’ evaluation scores below 0.5000. The provinces of the western region had comparatively lower levels of sustainable development, with six of the provinces ranking among the bottom ten in the overall sustainability score. In the northeast region, Liaoning had the highest overall sustainable development level, ranking ninth in the country, with an evaluation score of 0.7726; however, there were large differences across the region, with the other two provinces ranking 19th and 21th, respectively, in the overall sustainability score. Based on the research findings, this paper has provided relevant policy recommendations for China to further improve the sustainable development level of various provinces in the future.

Keywords: sustainable development level; indicator system; Entropy Coefficient; TOPSIS method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2712/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/7/2712/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:7:p:2712-:d:338891

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().