A Study On Economic Growth Perfomance In China Under Environmental Restrains

Since reform and opening, China has become the fastest growing country in the world, but it has paid the high price for it such as a series of serious environmental problems. So it is necessary to transform the way of economic growth, and to enhance the contribution of TFP to economic growth while minimizing the adverse effects of economic activity on the environment. Correspondingly, the correct evaluation of the performance of China's economic development must take into account of environmental factors. Based on directional distance function, this article integrates environmental factors into the analysis framework of relative efficiency and TFP, which attempts to rationally evaluate the quality of China's economic development.Measurements of environmental technical efficiency (ETE) and green TFP from the perspecives of regions, industries and industrial sectors constitute the core part of this dissertation. Moreover, we discuss a series of problems such as the coordinaton of economic growth and environment, the regional green TFP differences and convergence, the environmental technology innovators, new industrialization patterns, factors associated with changes in ETE and so on. The main conclusions are as follows:1. There was the highest overall efficiency and lowest intenal difference in the eastern region, while the western region was quite the opposite. With consideting environmental factors, the Easten region has the fastest TFP growth, followed by the central and the western region. However, the western region has the fastest green TFP growth, followed by the Estern and the Central region. Green TFP growth rate of the national economy was less than 1/3 of traditional TFP growth rate, and both came from the front technical progress. The efficiency gap between regions has no improvement. So China will still under pressure of reducing pollution emissions in a long time within the context of the new round of heavy industrialization process, the national "Maintain Economic Growth" policy and the serious lag in environment technical progress.2. Industrial sectors' ETE are lower than their TE, and efficiency between industries are highly unbalanced. TFP growth was mainly derived from leading industries'technical progress, while the efficiency gap between industries is widening continuously. There is the fastest TFP growth under the control of CO2 emissions, and the slowest TFP growth when controlling COD emission. Convergence analysis also shows that only the TFP growth when controlling COD emission do not display significant industrial convergence characteristics. China is a conntry which is serious lack of fresh water, and currently ongoing drought in Southwest sounds the alarm bell for China. Therefore, it can not be ignored that integrated technology progress considering improve the water pollution when get response to international climate summit and develop "low-carbon economy".3. The study on green TFP growth in China's regional industrial sector shows that the western region has the fastest growth and highest volatility, and the central region has the slowest growth and is relatively stable, the eastern region is in between. National and three region's industrial TFP growths are mainly derived from the leading technical progress. To promote environmental technology innovation is mainly the developed eastern region, while the cetral region is far behind. There is not only relative convergence but also absolute convergence existed in national green TFP growth. Industrial TFP in three regions of China all exist conditionalβconvergence that is these regions'industrial TFP is moving closer to their steady state. But the absolute convergence test results are quite different. Te western and eastern regions show the club convergence characteristics, while the central region has revealed a weak divergence characteristics.4. The dissertation also constructs a theoretical framework of new industrialization pattern. The pattern of industrial development in China can be divided into four types: resources-saving and environment-friendly, resource-saving and environment-pollutive, resources-wasteful and environment-friendly, resources-wasteful and environment-pollutive. The eastern region has been in resource-saving and environment-friendly industrialization development model as a whole, while the central and western areas are still in resources-wasting and environment-pollutive oriented industrialization development model.5. Empirical study on ETE diaparity and its affecting factors has shown that improvement of living standards, deepening SOE reform, improving the scale of enterprises, adjusting the export structure, and increasing scientific and technological inputs are conducive to further enhance ETE, while heavy industrialization process, the raising of capital organic composition and lack of digestion, absorption and reinnovation of technology import are harmful to ETE improvement.