Measurement and driving factors of green total factor manufacturing energy efficiency in China

Abstract

As the largest manufacturer in the world, China has attracted much attention in the green transformation of manufacturing. This paper firstly designs an evaluation index system (EIS) of green total factor manufacturing energy efficiency (GTFMEE), which covers the three industrial wastes as the undesired output. Based on the EIS, the directional distance function (DDF) was adopted to measure the GTFMEEs of 30 provincial administrative regions (provinces) in China from 2010 to 2017. Then, the Tobit model was introduced to empirically analyze the driving factors of the GTFMEE. The results show that: The different provinces varied significantly in GTFME; the high GTFMEE provinces concentrated in the eastern coastal area, while most inland provinces had undesirable GTFMEEs. The eastern, central, and western regions exhibited different dynamic trends of GTFMEE; the eastern region had much higher GTFMEE than the central and western regions. The GTFMEE has a significant positive correlation with economic growth, technological progress, and opening-up, a significant negative correlation with energy structure, and urbanization level, and an insignificant correlation with human potential.