What Are the Impacts of Urbanisation on Carbon Emissions Efficiency? Evidence from Western China

Abstract

The contributions of this research are making the theoretical analysis of the impact mechanism of urbanisation on carbon emissions efficiency (CEE), and then empirically analysing the effects of urbanisation on CEE in Western China from 2010 to 2019 by applying the super-efficiency epsilon-based measure model with undesirable outputs and the Tobit model. Major findings are: (1) The mean CEE of the 11 western provinces show a trend of declining and then increasing over those 10 years, demonstrating U-shaped change characteristics. (2) The CEE of Guangxi has the most significant decrease, while the CEE of Chongqing showed only a small fluctuation; the CEE of Guizhou has the characteristic that first it rises, then descends, then rises again; the CEEs of Inner Mongolia and Yunnan have been in the production frontier surface from 2010 to 2015, and presents the trend of declining, then increasing after 2015. The CEEs of the other six western provinces present a trend of declining, then increasing. (3) Chongqing, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia, and Yunnan have a high level of CEE, followed by Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Guangxi, and Guizhou, with an intermediate level of CEE, and Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai, with the lowest level of CEE. (4) The effects of urbanisation on CEE in Western China present a U-shaped relationship, meaning that the process of influence was first inhibition, then stimulation. At present, the process of urbanisation shows negative impacts on the CEE, while the tipping point has not yet arrived. The western provinces of China should follow the path of high-quality urbanisation to quickly shift the impact of urbanisation on CEE to the right side of the U-shaped curve.