An analysis of environmental efficiency and environmental pollution treatment efficiency in China’s industrial sector

Abstract

This research adopts the meta Dynamic Directional Distance Functions (DDF) model in order to calculate the environmental efficiency and environmental governance efficiency of China’s industrial sector from 2010 to 2017 from the overall, sub-regional, and sub-provincial perspectives and discusses the technical gaps in regional environmental pollution control and the reasons for ineffective environmental governance. The research results show that the overall level of environmental governance efficiency in China’s industrial sector is relatively high over this time period, and the group frontier calculation results have improved compared to the meta frontier. The actual technical level of the high-income group is closest to the potential technical level, and the upper-middle income group is still far from the potential technical level. The main reason for the ineffective environmental governance of the provinces in the high-income group is ineffective manage-ment, while the main reason for ineffective environmental governance of the provinces in the up-per-middle-income groups is technical inefficiency. Regardless of high-income groups or upper-middle-income groups, each province’s inefficiency of environmental governance is caused by inefficiency of the input factors.