| Ever since the reform and opening-up, severer of energy depletion and environmental pollution especially greenhouse effect have been seriously influenced people’s daily life and economic development in the light of the tremendous growth of China’s national economy. In constructing the economical society, research on regional carbon emission efficiency and its influencing factors have become a hot issue among academia. Many scholars have a multi-view research of this but have not yet formed unified conclusion. Unlike previous literature, advanced efficiency measurement is adopted by the author to measure China’s regional carbon emission efficiency and to compare it with the traditional total-factor preferences on the basis of related theories, then quoted the method of spatial econometric to research convergence and influences of regional carbon emission efficiency. It has important significance for governments to seek policy enlightenments which helped to improve regional carbon emission efficiency according to study influences that regional differences caused and to combine nation’s developing strategy in working out policies, carrying out energy and emission reduction and promoting low carbon economic development. The main works of this dissertation were:First, based on definitions of carbon emission efficiency, the paper defines the efficiency of regional carbon emission from perspective of single factor and total factor. The former is defined as the ratio of two variables,while the latter is defined as highest economy growth and lowest rate of CO2 emissions we obtained without increased inputs of capital, labor and energy. Meanwhile based on carbon emission theory systematically, the author analyes economic sense in researching carbon emission efficiency. Promoted regional carbon emission efficiency is not only the objective requirement of sustainable development, but also the important issues needed to focus on to develop low carbon economy. Besides that, the author briefly expounds spatial econometrics theories which provids methodological support for dissertation’s empirical analysis.Next, the paper respectively investigates the measures, space distributive pattern and spatial correlation, convergence and influences of carbon emission efficiency. Among them, the region’s total factor carbon emission efficiency measured by non-parametric method(DEA), then the paper makes a comparative analysis between it and single factor carbon emission efficiency. Spatial econometrics is used in researching of space distributive pattern, spatial correlation and convergence about carbon emission efficiency. Spatial econometrics and panel threshold model influences are both used in the researching of influencing factor about carbon emission efficiency. By empirical research, the following conclusions are drawn:①According to the result of calculating carbon emissions, the provinces which have the higher carbon emissions mainly distribute in the eastern economic developed area, while the lower carbon emissions mainly in Midwest inland areas. From the perspective of areas, the east has the largest carbon emissions, the central occupying second, and the west coming third, which shows that the China’s carbon emissions highly differs in different areas. Based on the result of single factor carbon emission efficiency which is description by carbon productivity. Shanghai, Beijing, Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan are the top five provinces of the high carbon productivity in china, while Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Guizhou, and Shanxi rank at the bottom. Based on the result of DEA(Data Envelope Analysis) method, the carbon emissions efficiency value of Liaoning, Shanghai, Yunnan is 1, achieving the optimal production frontier, while Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shanxi, and Guizhou own the lowest carbon emissions efficiency, far from the frontier. In the view of areas, The sequence of estimation results between total and single factor carbon efficiency are consistent, which the east has the highest efficiency value, the central and the west in turn. Obviously, the two indexs have significant difference and coherent consistency. But in terms of quality, is Total factor index significantly superior to single factor index.②The clustering results of carbon emissions efficiency in areas show that the eastern coastal area has the high efficiency, the less-developed provinces located in the Midwest having medium and low efficiency. So, the distribution of carbon emissions efficiency and carbon emissions intensity presents non-correspondence in space. Four-space-diagram directly reflects that the eastern coastal provinces which possess the level of high carbon emissions efficiency distribute in a high levels of three or four levels, but the Midwest inland provinces which have the low level of carbon emissions efficiency locate in the low levels of first and second level. At the same time, spatial autocorrelation index indicates that the efficiency of regional carbon emissions significantly shows remarkable autocorrelation in the space, and has obvious spatial agglomeration trend. Meanwhile, the drawing of local space scatters intuitively reflects that the efficiency of China’s regional carbon emissions exists not only the main spatial dependence characteristics, also the performance of spatial heterogeneity.③The empirical results of the models of spatial absolute bconvergence and e spatial conditional bconvergence shows that the efficiency of China’s regional carbon emissions not only has the absolute convergence trend, also has the characteristic of conditional convergence. After putting into space effect, the speed of absolute convergence of carbon emissions efficiency promotes than the speed of common panel models. And, when we control the industrial structure, industrial structure, the opening-up, technical progress and energy consumption structure, etc, the speed of conditional convergence of carbon emissions efficiency gets improved again. Meanwhile, the test of the space club convergence model shows that the efficiency of China’s regional carbon emissions exists two spatial convergence clubs(HH group and LL group).④Through the construction of model of spatial econometric model, we empirically study the related factors affecting the efficiency of China’s regional carbon emissions. And the study indicates that tertiary industry, the proportion of heavy industry, energy consumption structure, urbanization level and financial ratios have remarkable negative effects. Nevertheless, corporate ownership structure, government intervention, foreign direct investment and technological progress have significant positive influence on carbon emissions efficiency. Besides, the effect of foreign trade is not significant. From the perspective of areas, among the factors of carbon emission efficiency in the east, the central and the west, tertiary industry, energy consumption structure, the technical progress and urbanization level influence the efficiency in the same direction, however, the proportion of heavy industry, corporate ownership structure, government intervention, foreign trade, foreign direct investment and financial ratios affect the efficiency in different ways.⑤Based on the nonlinear perspective, we investigate the nonlinear effect of economic growth and environmental regulation on carbon emissions efficiency by establishing spatial econometric models and threshold models. The spatial econometric model of that nonlinear impact of economic growth on the carbon emission efficiency show that, from nationwide viewpoint, the relationship of long-term economic growth and carbon efficiency have the inverted "N" shaped. With the increasing of economy, carbon emission efficiency shows three stages: first decreased, then increased and last decreased. This non-linear relationship in the middle region is more significant than the western, but it is not significant in the east. When putting the non-linear characteristics into the threshold model and the results of threshold model show that, when the environmental regulation itself as the threshold, in addition to environmental regulation of the central area has double threshold effect on carbon emission efficiency, the rest have the characteristics of three threshold effect. The relationship between environmental regulation and carbon emission efficiency showing a clear "U" curve in national and eastern region, but this relationship shows J-curve in the western and central. When the economic growth as the threshold variable, the models of national, eastern, central and western regions have characteristic of three threshold effect. The relationship of environmental regulation and carbon efficiency showed a clear "U" shaped for nationwide and region.Finally, the paper puts forward some policy implications about enhancing the regional carbon emissions efficiency based on the above conclusions: Adhering to the a sustainable development strategy for economy and gradually achieving the transformation of economic development; Vigorously implementing the industrial structure optimization strategy and gradually reducing industrial energy consumption; Focusing on the implementation of industrial upgrading and taking a new road to industrialization; Enhancing the level of foreign investment and optimizing the structure of trade; Actively implementing the clean energy consumption strategy and optimizing the energy consumption structure; Implementing differentiated government intervention strategies and increasing environmental investment fund; Taking efforts to develop clean technologies and improving the energy efficiency; Strengthening the guidance of financial development and increasing support for low carbon enterprise; Enhancing the level of regional economic development and implementing differentiated environmental regulations... |
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