Eco-Efficiency and Its Evolutionary Change under Regulatory Constraints: A Case Study of Chinese Transportation Industry

Abstract

The transportation industry is characterized as a capital-intensive industry that plays a crucial role in economic and social development, and the rapid expansion of this industry has led to serious environmental problems, which makes the eco-efficiency analysis of the transportation industry an important issue. Previous research paid little attention to the regulatory scenarios and suffered from the incomparability problem, hence this paper aims to reasonably estimate the eco-efficiency and identify its evolutionary characteristics. We measure the eco-efficiency and the corresponding global Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index using a modified model of the data envelopment analysis framework, in which different regulatory constraints are incorporated. Based on the empirical study on the transportation industry of thirty provinces in China, we find that the eco-efficiency of Chinese transportation industry experienced a slight increase during 2015–2016, a sharp decline during 2016–2017, and a continuous rise since year 2017. The Middle Yangtze River area was the best performer among the eight regions in terms of eco-efficiency, while the Southwest area was placed last. The global Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index showed an earlier increase and later decrease trend, which was quite consistent with the reality of the variation of inputs and outputs and the emergence of COVID-19. Moreover, the best practice gap change was found to be the main driven force of productivity. The empirical results verify the practicability of our measurement models and the conclusions can be adopted in guiding the formulation of corresponding policies and regulations.