Estimation On Environmental Total Factor Productivity And Analysis On Its Influential Factors Of China Cities

After30year’s reform and opening up, China has experienced rapid economicdevelopment and a substantial increase in the level of urbanization, but the accompaniedenvironmental and ecological problems are becoming increasingly prominent. TotalFactor Productivity (TFP) is the core of economic growth and an important symbol ofthe improvement of regional economic development quality, efficiency, technologicalinnovation and progress. The pursuit of "good" economic development should not onlyimprove TFP contribution to economic growth but also fully consider the rigidconstraints of resources and environment on economic development scale andspeed.Therefore, the correct evaluation of China’s economic development performance,must be in the traditional study on total factor productivity based on considering therestriction of resource and environment impact.City is the product of a variety ofelements spatial agglomeration and the core of the regional economic growth. Cityenvironmental total factor productivity is the measure of our city development level ofvery important economic performance indicators, which can not only directly reflecteach city’s overall development situation, but also can provide clues to explain theregional differences in the development of our country cities.Through230prefecture-level cities’ changes of environmental total factor productivity, this article isto solve the following problems: how is environmental total factor productivity of Chinacities change? And what differences exists compared to TFP without considering theenvironmental constraints? What are the sources of city TFP growth? What are thedifferences among TFP growth of different levels of city? What factors will haveimpacts on city TFP?In order to solve the above problems, based on the theory of total factorproductivity, this paper using Malmquist-Luenberger index (ML index) measures theChinese230prefecture-level cities’ Environmental Total Factor Productivity and itsdecomposition during2003-2010years, and respectively from overall changes of ourcountry city, four large plates and the three big city groups comprehensively analyzesour country city environmental total factor productivity, then analyzes the influencefactors of city environmental total factor productivity and finally draw the followingconclusions:(1) Our country city environmental total factor productivity show ascendant trendon the whole, which contributed21.18%to the economic growth; the increase of city environmental total factor productivity is mainly due to the technological progress."Growth effect" of technical progress is significant, while "horizontal effect" ofefficiency promotion don’t exist. Environmental total factor productivity is higher thanthat of the traditional total factor productivity.(2) The change trend of ML index, efficiency index and technological progressindex of four plates are in consistency, all reflect the characteristics of great increase ofenvironmental total factor productivity level and technology progress, and the decreaseof efficiency. Total factor productivity growth of eastern part of the city increase mostquickly, followed by the northeast city, central and western areas last, lower than thenational average. Whether traditional total factor productivity or environmental totalfactor productivity growth rates of midland and western area city are both lower thanthe eastern coastal areas, which means the regional economic development in China isin "double deterioration".(3) Three city groups’ productivity during2003-2010year keep rising, the highestproductivity growth rates is in Jing-Jin-Ji city group, followed by the Pearl River Deltacity group, Yangtze River Delta city group last, and lower than the average level of thewhole nation. The first city of each city group Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, theirenvironmental total factor productivity during the sample period are maintained asustained rapid growth, of three city Shanghai is the only one which environmental totalfactor productivity growth is jointly promoted by technical progress and efficiencyimprovement; Beijing, Guangzhou productivity growth originate technical progress,while efficiency change completely "drag". The rest of the20provincial capitals andvice provincial cities’ ML average and cumulative change were lower than15focus city,the remaining195city productivity growth rate was the lowest. This conclusionexplains the differences of all levels of city productivity level, and realizes that how todevelop medium and small cities is the future development direction.(4) Finally, panel data were used to investigate the influence factors of cityenvironmental total factor productivity growth, environmental total factor productivitysupport “Kuznets Curve Hypothesis" and "Pollution Haven Hypothesis". Endowmentstructures, investment in science and technology, enterprise environment managementcapabilities all have positive influences on the environmental total factor productivity.