Industrial carbon emission efficiency in the Yangtze River economic belt and its influencing factors

Abstract

The industrial carbon emission reduction in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YZEB) is of great significance to the Belt and Road Initiative in China. This paper builds an evaluation index system for industrial carbon emission efficiency, and measures the industrial carbon emission efficiencies of the 11 provincial administrative regions (provinces) in the YREB from 2002 to 2016, using the modified slack-based measure (mSBM). In addition, the author analyzed the influencing factors of the efficiency, and empirically tested the significance of each influencing factor by the Tobit model. The main conclusions are as follows: During the study period, the YREB provinces differed greatly in industrial carbon emission efficiency. Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang reached the optimal efficiency of one, while the other provinces failed to reach the optimal frontier, leaving the room for improvement. After dividing the YREB into three regions, it is learned that the downstream enjoyed the most efficient industrial carbon emission, which remained the same through the study area; the industrial carbon emission efficiencies in the midstream and the upstream were much lower than the upstream, but gradually improved with the elapse of time. On the influencing factors, the energy consumption structure and technical progress showed insignificant impacts, the ownership structure, foreign direct investment and environmental regulation greatly promoted the industrial carbon emission efficiency in the YREB, while the size of industrial enterprises obviously suppressed the efficiency.