Transformation efficiency of resource-based cities in the yellow river basin and its influencing factors

Abstract

Resource-based cities are widely distributed in the Yellow River Basin and face prominent problems. Improving urban efficiency and promoting the transformation of resource-based cities are an important way to achieve ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. This study used the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate the transformation efficiency of 41 resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2007 to 2017. It further carried out a panel regression analysis on the factors that influence the transformation efficiency of resource-based cities through the fixed effect model. The results show that: 1) Transformation efficiency of resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin is not ideal. The number of cities with the best comprehensive efficiency reached 39.02% of all cities in 2017, but the gap in transformation efficiency has widened since 2015. 2) Scale efficiency is the main determining factor of comprehensive efficiency. The number of cities with the best scale efficiency increased first and then decreased, and the feature of decreasing returns to scale became increasingly more obvious, which indicates that there was a input redundancy in the transformation efficiency of some cities. 3) On the whole, per capita GDP, the proportion of government financial revenue in GDP, and the number of students in ordinary higher education institutions have a significant positive effect on the transformation efficiency of resource-based cities, while the proportion of the tertiary industry has a significant negative effect. With regard to different types of resource-based cities, the proportion of foreign-invested industrial enterprises has a significant positive effect on the transformation efficiency of coal-based cities, and the proportion of mining employees has a significant positive effect on the transformation efficiency of mature resource-based cities. The factors influencing the transformation efficiency of different cities are different.