Research on High-Quality Development Evaluation, Space–Time Characteristics and Driving Factors of China’s Construction Industry under Carbon Emission Constraints

Abstract

Research on the regional difference characteristics and driving mechanisms of high-quality developmental evaluations of the construction industry under the constraint of carbon emissions has important practical significance for guiding the efficient development of the construction industry, alleviating the contradiction between economic and social development and resource conservation, low-carbon requirements in the process of rapid urbanization, and realizing regional coordinated development. Taking carbon emissions as unexpected output into the evaluation system of high-quality development of construction industry, this paper studies the spatial–temporal differentiation characteristics, dynamic trend evolution and its driving factors of high-quality development of China’s construction industry from 2006 to 2021 by using the SE-SBM model of unexpected output, GML index analysis and grey correlation model. The research results show that: (1) from 2006 to 2021, the high-quality development of the construction industry generally fluctuated in a sinusoidal function pattern, and the high-quality development level of the construction industry in China was improved as a whole. It is manifested in the coexistence of regional imbalance and spatial correlation. High-efficiency provinces are concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, forming an obvious cluster effect; however, the radiation-driving effect is weak. (2) The regional difference in technological scale change is the largest, which is the main reason for the difference in regional total factor production growth rate; the contribution of technological progress to the difference in total factor growth rate is also relatively large. Generally speaking, technological factors are the key to reducing the difference of total factor growth rate between regions. (3) Urbanization level, carbon emission constraints, government regulation, scientific and technological R & D investment and industrial structure upgrading are the main driving factors that affect the spatiotemporal differentiation and evolution of high-quality development of the construction industry.