A comparative analysis on energy-saving and emissions-reduction performance of three urban agglomerations in China

China's most important three urban agglomerations, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), Yangtze River Delta (YRD) and Pearl River Delta (PRD), are expected to play a leading role in energy saving and emissions reduction in China. Based on the biennial Malmquist productivity index and the non-radial direct distance function, this study improved the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to evaluate the energy saving and emissions-reduction performance (EEP) of these three urban agglomerations. The empirical results indicated that BTH did not show improvement in performance, whereas YRD and PRD showed a significant improvement. The annual growth rate of performance was higher in the PRD than in the other two urban agglomerations. The "catch-up effect" of the three urban agglomerations vanished after 2010, and the possible reasons for this change are the large-scale economic stimulus plan adopted by the government to address the global crisis and the recent decline of economic growth. The technical progress level increased at first, then decline, and increased again. This study also found that 13 convergence of performance existed in BTH and YRD. However, there was no 13 convergence of performance in PRD. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.