CO2 Marginal Abatement Cost and Determinants——An Empirical Analysis of Sample Cities in China

This paper investigates the marginal abatement cost(MAC) of COemissions across 104 Chinese cities between 2001 and 2008.Based on parametric directional distance function,this paper discovers that the mean marginal abatement cost of COemissions for sample cities was 967 yuan/ton.In terms of region,COmarginal abatement cost is significantly higher in China’s eastern region than in central and western regions;in terms of provincial-level region,it is the highest in Shanghai and the lowest in Shaanxi;in terms of city,it is the highest in Shanghai and the lowest in Zhangjiajie with the ratio between their medians being at 48:1;in terms of time,marginal abatement cost has been always on the rise with significant intercity disparities.There is a U-shaped curve relationship between marginal abatement cost of cities and COemissions per unit of GDP,which is negatively correlated with the share of secondary industry and positively correlated with the level of urbanization.