Study of the Energy and Environmental Efficiency of the Chinese economy based on a DEA Model

Energy and environmental efficiency were analyzed for each province in China by developing a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model using real-time data available for 30 provinces. The Malmquist Index was selected to illustrate the dynamic characteristics of energy and environment efficiency and the tobit model was used to regress the factors affecting efficiency. The results indicated that Beijing and other southeast coastal provinces are relatively efficient while provinces in the central and western regions of China are inefficient. The gap between Beijing and low energy-environment efficient provinces is significant and is continuously increasing. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, the proportion of tertiary industry and the urbanization rate were found to be the key elements that affect energy/environment efficiency with the former two factors exhibiting significant positive correlations and the latter factor exhibiting a negative correlation. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B. V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of School of Environment, Beijing Normal University.