Eco-efficiency analysis of industrial system in China: A data envelopment analysis approach

Bing Zhang, Jun Bi, Ziying Fan, Zengwei Yuan and Junjie Ge

Ecological Economics, 2008, vol. 68, issue 1-2, 306-316

Abstract: Eco-efficiency is an instrument for sustainability analysis, indicating how efficient the economic activity is with regard to nature's goods and services. This paper conducts an eco-efficiency analysis for regional industrial systems in China by developing data envelopment analysis (DEA) based models. Using real data of 30 provinces in China, an empirical study is employed to illustrate the pattern of regional industrial systems' eco-efficiency. The results indicate that Tianjing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Beijing, Hainan and Qinghai are relatively eco-efficient. The results also show that, provinces with higher level GDP per capita will have higher eco-efficiency relatively with an exception of Hainan and Qinghai. The study provides deeper insights into the causes of eco-inefficiency, and gives further implications on environmental protection strategies in China. In the article, we also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using DEA in eco-efficiency analysis and areas that require further work are presented.

Keywords: Eco-efficiency; Industrial; system; Data; envelopment; analysis; (DEA); China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (155)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(08)00140-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2008:i:1-2:p:306-316

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().