The impact and economic cost of environmental regulation on energy utilization in China

This article utilizes three data envelopment analysis-based models: a no environmental regulation model, a weak environmental regulation model and a strong environmental regulation model to reveal the impact of environmental regulation on China’s regional total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE) during the period of 2003–2010. To take a further step, these three models are adjusted for calculating the correspondingly macro-economic cost of environmental regulation. The estimation results show that at present, the level of China’s environmental regulation is relatively low, and an enhancing of environmental regulation would lead to a sufficient increase of China’s regional TFEE with an enormous economic cost as its price. That means in China, the nationwide environmental stress is high, and the regulation cost is very huge. Strengthening environmental regulation would inevitably have some negative influences on China’s economy in the short run. Based on our findings, some corresponding policies are also proposed in this article.     

数据包络分析在安徽省环境效率评价中的应用

利用DEA模型对安徽省16个城市2010—2012年的环境效率进行了评价分析。结果表明安徽省16个城市之间的环境效率差别明显,铜陵、马鞍山、合肥、淮南和滁州位于前沿面上,其他城市均处于弱DEA有效。综合经济与环境两方面合成将全省16个市划分为四个区域,即经济高产出环境高效率区域、经济高产出环境低效率区域、经济低产出环境低效率区域和经济低产出环境高效率区域。结合环境效率的影响因素给出提高环境效率的相关政策建议。     

产业生态化协同集聚的绿色经济效应与空间溢出效应

协同集聚作为现阶段产业发展的主要组织方式，对区域经济和生态均存在多方面影响。环保产业与一般制造业共聚是产业协同集聚的一种细分模式，通过对比其与一般协同集聚在动因、效应和关联方式等方面异同，依据其显著的生态闭环功能和环境正外部性特征，将其命名为生态化协同集聚，并基于2013—2019年短面板数据，采用杜宾模型（SDM）考察生态化协同集聚的绿色经济效应和空间溢出效应。结果表明，全国范围内生态化协同集聚对绿色经济效率的促进作用总体呈现U型特征，且存在显著的空间异质性和空间溢出效应；沿海地区生态化协同集聚程度较高，对绿色经济效率已形成有效促进作用，而内陆地区生态化协同集聚水平较低，集聚对绿色经济效率表现为抑制作用；环境规制对生态化协同集聚的绿色经济效应具有显著影响。结论可为生态化协同集聚促进区域绿色经济效率提升和高质量发展提供决策参考。     

Efficiency change,technological change and capital accumulation in Italian regions: a sectoral study

This paper examines the sources of labour productivity in the Italian regions during the period 1980–2004. Five economic sectors are investigated using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and taking into account productive specialisation and sector inefficiencies. Labour productivity change is decomposed into five components by means of Malmquist productivity indices: intra-sector efficiency change, composition efficiency change, input-biased technical change, magnitude component technical change and capital accumulation. Using bootstrap procedure, the components of labour productivity changes are statistically tested. Efficiency analysis shows that productive specialisation is not a source of inefficiency and efficiency gains can be obtained by sector-specific policies. Thus, it is possible to obtain improvements in efficiency in each sector of activity rather than reallocating resources among sectors. The results of the decomposition by sectors reveal heterogeneous sources of growth. The total economy has shown evidence of non-neutral technical change and, it has been found that agriculture, industry and construction experienced capital using technical change. The analysis of the decomposition of the labour productivity growth is complemented by an analysis of β-convergence.     

水生态安全下中国区域创新系统效率时空分异与影响因素研究

采用考虑非期望产出的超效率EBM模型和Theil指数分解法进行创新系统效率测度与区域差异结构性原因分析，并借助Tobit模型对典型影响因素作用路径及强度进行估计检验。研究结果表明：水生态安全下创新系统效率呈现东部、东北、中部、西部阶梯式分布，且表现出差异化发展态势；区域间差异和东部、西部区域内差异是影响整体差异的关键；经济发展水平、产业结构、教育水平、城镇化、外商直接投资、技术进步等变量对创新系统效率具有不同程度促进作用，而水资源禀赋、对外开放度对其存在负作用。最后，提出提升水生态安全下区域创新系统效率的对策建议。     

中国区域环境效率及其影响因素

本文基于DEA方法运用2000—2008年省级面板数据计算了我国30个省市的环境效率,同时使用Tobit模型分析了该环境效率的影响因素。研究表明:(1)2000—2008年,中国30个省区的环境效率基本保持在0.7～1之间波动,各省区平均环境效率刚开始时呈下降趋势,但在2004年或2005年出现明显拐点。(2)我国环境效率地区差异明显,东部发达地区在效率水平上优于中西部地区,中西部地区环境效率的敏感性高。另外,2005年以来西部与东部的效率差距趋于缩小,而中部的情况则不乐观。(3)加大对从业人员、能源、用水等投入要素的利用程度,能有效提高环境效率。(4)经济水平、外贸依存度、人口密度都会对我国环境效率产生显著的正面影响,其中人均GDP和进出口贸易额对环境效率影响较大,而工业污染治理投资占GDP比重对环境效率影响不显著。     

基于函数型数据的长江经济带生态建设动态综合评价

从生态建设的经济、社会、生态环境3个方面选取16个代表性指标,基于多指标面板数据,运用熵权法与函数型分析相结合方法对长江经济带2006—2017年的生态建设进行动态评价,深入分析各地区生态建设的变化趋势,探讨函数型综合评价在生态建设中的应用价值。得出结论:长江经济带地区在2006—2017年期间生态建设上升趋势明显;生态环境水平:东部地区呈U型分布,中西部地区呈上升趋势;生态保护和压力:东中西不断上升,且变化趋势相似;经济和社会因素对生态建设影响最大,其次为环境污染和环境治理;生态建设的发展状况与经济建设有一定的趋同特征,且具有明显的聚集现象;对于近两年生态建设发展状况,11个地区上升变化趋势相似。总体而言,函数型综合评价模型对长江经济带的动态生态建设情况分析有效且合理。     

Influencing the perception of what and who is important in ecological economics

In a recent article using citation analysis Hoepner et al. (2012) make strong claims to have identified the most influential works, authors, journals and institutions in a hypothetical field they call environmental and ecological economics. This paper shows that their work is biased by its framing, far from the non-subjective approach they claim and highly sensitive to minor data errors. More than this the exercise can be seen as another example of how ecological economics is susceptible to suppression by a dominant mainstream economic perspective which attempts to override, belittle and dismiss a whole range of alternative thought, including that which is heterodox, interdisciplinary, from the natural sciences and based in the non-economic social sciences. Ecological economics is not the same as agricultural, resource or environmental economics, and if it were it would be pointless. Neither can it be understood or treated as a subfield of resource and environmental economics, as done by Hoepner et al. (2012). I argue that the study promotes a limited perspective on social, environmental and economic problems that includes an implicit political and ideological framing. What is most influential, important or high quality in ecological economics is certainly not defined by such work.     

三峡库区经济发展与生态环境保护问题研究

经济发展与环境保护之间呈既对立又统一的关系,要实现经济的可持续发展必须在发展经济的同时重视对生态环境的保护。文章以三峡库区为例,通过系统阐述经济发展与环境保护之间的关系,结合三峡库区经济与生态环境的现状分析,认为库区经济发展离不开环境保护,而生态环境的改进也要以经济发展为物质基础,进而提出分别从政府、企业、公民三个方面努力以促进库区经济发展与环境保护协调发展的基本对策。     

江苏苏南地区环境库茨涅茨曲线实证研究

EKC假说是指在经济发展早期环境质量逐渐恶化,经济发展到一定水平后,环境质量会逐渐改善,即环境压力和经济增长之间呈倒U形关系。文章以苏南地区1986—2004年经济发展和环境面板数据为基础,建立了苏南地区经济发展和工业污染排放的计量模型,以此来分析苏南地区经济增长与环境污染的演替轨迹。结果表明苏南地区环境污染与经济增长之间呈现N型波动EKC特征,工业污染排放量随着人均GDP的快速提高而波浪式地不断恶化,而不同于以往的经典理论中倒U型的形状。苏南地区依然处于污染排放量的增长期,如何抓住机遇,调整产业结构,加大环保投入,转变经济增长方式,平稳地实现转折,实现环境和经济的双赢是苏南地区可持续发展和率先实现全面小康的首要问题。     

影响我国环境库兹涅茨曲线的外贸与环境政策分析

环境库兹涅茨曲线(EKC)体现了一国经济增长与环境污染的关系.本文以1990～2005年我国工业污染的数据为基础,描绘出我国EKC是"N"字型波浪式上升的,阐述了产生这一特点的贸易政策和环境政策的影响因素,肯定了政府的环保政策对于环境恶化的控制效果,但认为政府的直接干预只是协调经济增长与环境污染关系的外部手段,提高经济运行效率才是解决问题的根本途径.     

Dynamics of environmental quality and economic development: the regional experience from Yangtze River Delta of China

This article investigates the dynamic relationship between economic progress and environmental quality at a regional level. An important economic intuition in this context is that environmental degradation will be limited by human behaviour if costs and benefits of such degradation are local since economic agents will then be incentivized to choose appropriate corrective action. Therefore, we note the likelihood that regional economic development can help regions ‘grow out of’ environmental problems. Using a new data set from Yangtze River Delta of China, we find a strong confirmation of the intuition that human can and will resolve the environmental problem by altering the damaging behaviour of economic agents. A very interesting finding of this study is that the relationship between environmental quality and economic progress measured by per capita income can display a wave-like function in the case of water pollution, as opposed to the much dramatized environmental Kuznets curve, with significant policy implications.     

Net primary production and gross domestic product in China derived from satellite imagery

Since the 1980s Chinese economic reform has greatly accelerated its economic growth while in contrast China's environment is increasingly degraded. The Chinese government has recognized that environmental protection and sustainable economic development can promote mutual and sustainable co-development of the economy and the environment as a basic national principle. This paper examines the interactions between economic development and environmental change in China that were compared and analyzed for the years 1996 and 2000. Net primary production (NPP) was selected as a proxy evaluator of ecosystems and gross domestic product (GDP) was chosen as a proxy evaluator of economic development. An NPP change map was produced with Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) summed annual NPP imagery products. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime imagery was used to produce a Chinese GDP change map. An integrated map was produced to exhibit the combined changes of NPP and GDP. This map showed that in the regions with increased GDP, NPP decreased but the regions with no GDP change were smaller in area for NPP increase while larger in area for NPP decrease. The changing pattern of NPP varied with the developing level of GDP at province level. A province's development of GDP is controlled by its accessibility to natural resources. Interactions between NPP and GDP are greatly affected by factors of spatial location aside from human factors and natural systems' characteristics.     

我国科技创新效率的实证研究——基于DEA-Malmquist模型和中国省际面板数据

运用DEA-Malmquist模型对2002—2010年我国省域科技创新效率进行了静态和动态分析。研究结果表明:十六大以来,我国整体科技创新的投入、产出是有效的;我国科技创新效率存在明显的梯度特征,即南部沿海经济区的科技创新效率最高,东北综合经济区的科技创新效率最低,部分省份仍然存在投入冗余和产出不足的情况;全要素生产率的改善主要得益于技术进步和规模效率的改进,但是各地区全要素生产率的改善并不均匀。最后指出,未来发展仍需合理调节资源配置、提高科技成果转化效率、制定和实施促进科技成果转化等各种措施。     

Water markets and freshwater ecosystem services: Policy reform and implementation in the Columbia and Murray-Darling Basins

Water markets have featured prominently in the reallocation of water rights to restore freshwater ecosystem health. Incentive-based water rights acquisition and transactions have emerged as a market-oriented policy approach to reallocate water resources from existing uses to enhance the provision, regulation, and sustainability of freshwater ecosystem services. This paper develops a conceptual framework to examine factors enabling and constraining successful policy reform and implementation in market-based environmental water allocation. This analysis distills and extends the findings and lessons of a September 2007 workshop in Brisbane, Australia on environmental water transactions. Two case studies were selected in water stressed basins - the Columbia (U.S.A) and Murray-Darling (Australia) Basins - where transactional approaches to environmental water allocation first emerged. The case studies draw upon practitioner perspectives and previous policy and economic analysis in two regions where shared political economic and physical conditions lend a strong analytical basis for comparison. A common set of policy and regulatory reforms has occurred in both cases - albeit in different forms and via distinct paths - to develop three enabling conditions: (1) establishment of rights to and limits on freshwater extraction and alteration; (2) recognition of the environment as a legitimate water use; and (3) authority to transfer existing water rights to an environmental purpose. However, these elements of policy reform are necessary but not sufficient for effective implementation; a second set of driving forces, barriers, and adaptations explains the ability to achieve larger scale ecological outcomes. These conditions include the physical, social and economic factors driving demand for environmental water allocation; administrative procedures, organizational development and institutional capacity to effect transfers; and adaptive mechanisms to overcome legal, cultural, economic, and environmental barriers. The case study analysis suggests that environmental water transactions can play an important role in establishing environmental water allocations, although water markets require ongoing institutional capacity and adaptive governance. The conceptual framework and empirical lessons generated through this cross-case comparison provide the basis for an expanded research agenda to evaluate the design and performance of market-oriented reforms as implementation experience accrues and new programs emerge in diverse ecological and political economic settings.     

生态脆弱地区可持续发展的症结及对策

本文阐述了脆弱生态环境的概念及不同脆弱地区的特征。在分析可持续发展内涵的基础上,针对不同脆弱地区阻碍可持续发的症结所在,提出生态环境脆弱的地区实现生态持续性是首要目标,应从政策入手,明晰资源产权,合理制定资源价格,减少外部性,严格控制人口数量,提高人口素质,加大资金投入,以实现生态脆弱地区的可持续发展。     

Input-Orientated Data Envelopment Analysis Framework for Measuring and Decomposing Economic,Environmental and Ecological Efficiency: An Application to OECD Agriculture

This paper presents an input-orientated data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework which allows the measurement and decomposition of economic, environmental and ecological efficiency levels in agricultural production across different countries. Economic, environmental and ecological optimisations search for optimal input combinations that minimise total costs, total amount of nutrients, and total amount of cumulative exergy contained in inputs respectively. The application of the framework to an agricultural dataset of 30 OECD countries revealed that (i) there was significant scope to make their agricultural production systems more environmentally and ecologically sustainable; (ii) the improvement in the environmental and ecological sustainability could be achieved by being more technically efficient and, even more significantly, by changing the input combinations; (iii) the rankings of sustainability varied significantly across OECD countries within frontier-based environmental and ecological efficiency measures and between frontier-based measures and indicators.     

Environmental factors affecting European and Central Asian health-systems’ bias-corrected efficiency

Health expenditures comprise a large part of national incomes, which explains the growing interest of government agencies in establishing efficient control and management policies in the current context of economic difficulties. One of the main problems in efficiency analysis is to determine the environmental variables that have an impact on the production process. In particular, employing data on the European and Central Asian health systems, the article demonstrates that bias corrected Data Envelopment Analysis is most appropriate measuring efficiency than traditional Data Envelopment Analysis. Bias correction, implies a higher potential resources reduction, affects the ranking of health systems and allows variables influencing efficiency which would be undiscovered with non-corrected estimation. The second stage determines that lifestyle factors, policy organization and location of countries affect the efficiency results and cause differences among the countries. The contribution of these results is particularly useful facing the decision making by governments. Their strategies should be oriented to implementing active policies to struggle against smoking and promoting health policies aimed at increasing the level of immunization in order to be more effective improving management efficiency.     

福州市旅游客流量现状及其驱动因素

旅游客流量是衡量区域旅游业及旅游经济发展快慢的一个重要指标,也是反映旅游区景观质量好坏与综合服务水平高低的一个综合指标。文章依据福州市最近5年(1999—2003年)的旅游客流量及相关的社会经济数据,分年度、季度、月与黄金周等不同时段对近年来福州市区域旅游客流量的现状及其变动状况进行分析,并从旅游景区(点)内在的引力因素与外在的社会环境驱动因素两方面对影响福州市客流量的主要驱动因素进行了分析。