Technological Bias and Its Influencing Factors in Sustainable Development of China’s Transportation

Abstract

The bias of technological progress, particularly relating to energy saving and carbon emissions reduction, plays a significant role in the sustainable development of transportation, and has not yet received sufficient attention. The objectives of this paper were to examine the bias of technological change (BTC), input-biased technological change (IBTC), and output-biased technological change (OBTC), and their influencing factors in the sustainable development of China’s regional transportation industry from 2005 to 2017. A slack-based measure (SBM) Malmquist productivity index was adopted to measure the BTC, IBTC, and OBTC by decomposing green total factor productivity. The results revealed that: (1) Continuous technological bias progress and input-biased technological progress existed in China’s transportation development from 2005 to 2017, making an important contribution to green total factor productivity. The output-biased technological change was close to 1, indicating a slight impact on the sustainable development of the transportation industry; (2) The bias of technological progress in eastern regions was slightly greater than that in central regions, and obviously greater than that in western regions. Moreover, different provinces experienced different types of technological bias change, with four major types observed during the research period; (3) The input-biased technology of a majority of provinces tended to invest more capital relative to labor, using more capital comparing to energy, and consume more energy relative to labor, while the output-biased technology of most provinces tended to produce desirable outputs (value added in transportation) and reduce the byproduct of CO2 relatively; (4) Average years of education, green patents in transportation, industrial scale, and local government fiscal expenditure in transportation significantly contributed to promoting the bias of technological progress, which was inhibited by the R&D investment. This study provides further insight into the improvement of sustainable development for China’s transportation, thereby helping to guide the government to promote green-biased technological progress and optimize the allocation of resources.