Regional environmental efficiency evaluation in China: Analysis based on the Super-SBM model with undesirable outputs

Economic growth in China needs lots of energy to support, but how to obtain a sufficient energy supply is now a problem. Meanwhile, environmental pollution caused by energy consumption is a problem that urgently needs to be solved. In order to adapt China’s fast developing economy, and on the basis of current policies, paying more attention to energy saving and environmental protection is more important. Therefore, to reasonably analyze China’s regional environmental efficiency and its determinants has practical significance. This article uses the Super-SBM model under undesirable outputs to measure regional environmental efficiency in China, and then explores influential factors of China’s environmental efficiency between 1991–2001 by means of the Tobit regression model. The empirical results show that during the sample period, the overall average level of China’s environmental efficiency is low, and the gap between different provinces and areas is large. The eastern area’s efficiency is obviously superior to the central and western area, which shows the necessity at present to optimize regional integration and promote innovation of energy conservation and emission reduction technology. At the same time, the “Eleven-Five ” year plan clearly states the energy saving and consumption reducing index, which motivates a great increase in China’s overall environmental efficiency, and promotes the fast development of resource conservation and environmentally friendly societal construction. The analysis of the influence factors by the Tobit model shows that fiscal decentralization and technology progress can increase environmental efficiency on the whole while economic scale and regional difference can also influence the efficiency. However, these factors’ influence is not the same in different areas. Finally, based on the research results, this paper gives policy recommendations on reducing pollution emissions and increasing China’s environmental efficiency.