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China, the world's largest developing country, faces a severe water shortage. As the government has set a goal of limiting water use to 7000 × 108 m3 by 2035, how to control the increase in water use will be a thorny issue for China. Unbalanced and uncoordinated regional socio-economic development is an important feature of China. Research on the interaction between provincial water use will help to optimize the rational allocation of water resources and control of water use. In this paper, SNA (social network analysis) method is first used to explore the characteristics of social network relationship between inter-provincial water use, construct a two-stage model of SNA–LMDI, and decompose the driving factors of inter-provincial water use evolution. We found the following points. (1) From 2000 to 2018, the spatial correlation network structure of water use is tending to be stable, and the stability and risk resistance of the whole network are enhanced. (2) From different angles to quantify the centricity analysis, can be found that eastern provinces located right in the heart of water network, obviously larger impact on water resources utilization in other provinces, Shanghai and Beijing is located in the former two, and central and western provinces in the edge position. (3) The national water use spatial correlation network can be divided into four blocks, net beneficial block, bidirectional spillover block, brokers block, and net spillover block. (4) Technological progress and industrial structure adjustment were the primary and secondary factors inhibiting the increase of total water use, while income increase was the main factor promoting the increase of total water use, population scale expansion had a weak role in promoting the increase of total water use. Some policy implications are put forward related to our research conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to elaborate a three-stage hybrid measure data envelopment analysis (DEA) with meta-frontier model, and then estimate the technical efficiency of Taiwanese semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) companies by using data from 2005 to 2016 on 92 firms. The study divided the Taiwanese semiconductor IC companies into two groups (IC design and IC manufacturing/packaging/testing) based on their different production characteristics and using the concepts of DEA meta-frontier models proposed by [O'Donnell, CJ, DP Rao, GE Battese (2008). Meta-frontier frameworks for the study of firm-level efficiencies and technology ratios. Empirical Economics, 34(2), 231–255] to estimate their efficiencies. The empirical results of this study show that the adjustment range of the average meta-efficiency values of all firms is higher than the adjustment range of the financial turbulent in 2007–2009 and 2011–2013. Second, before and after the adjustment, the distribution of the meta-technology ratio (MTR) changed slightly. The main reason may be that the global economic recession triggered by the 2007–2009 global financial tsunami and the 2011–2013 European debt crisis offset the impact of technological progress. Finally, under the considerations of environmental factors, the ratio of export to total sales, the degree of diversification, research and development spillover effects and the ratio of investment to mainland China are the main determinants influencing the operational performance of Taiwanese semiconductor IC firms and the impacts on MTR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy is known as the lifeline of national development, and from the last decade or so, the security of human energy supply has been frequently disturbed by natural disasters due to global warming and frequent geological activities. In this paper, by combing the literature, we found that the past literature on the relationship between energy and natural disasters mainly focused on measuring energy consumption under natural disasters, but less on the integrated evaluation of human economic activities, energy security and natural disasters, and less on the evaluation of the energy governance efficiency of each provincial, municipal, and autonomous region government in preventing and managing exposure to natural disasters from the perspective of Chinese provinces. Therefore, in order to fill the gap in the literature in this field, this paper collects panel data of energy consumption efficiency stages and natural disaster treatment stages from 2013 to 2017 for 30 provinces in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well as Tibet Autonomous Region) and uses the two-stage undesirable dynamic DDF model as a framework to study the relationship between economic, environmental pollution and natural disasters for the sample data and to analyze the phase-by-phase evaluation of energy and natural disaster efficiency and make corresponding policy recommendations. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The overall efficiency of China's eastern coastal provinces is higher than that of the central and western provinces. (2) The first-stage efficiency of Chinese provinces is better than the second stage, and the difference in efficiency of the first stage of each province is smaller than that of the second stage. (3) In terms of the efficiency of disaster prevention and relief inputs, the efficiency values are generally lower in most regions of China. (4) Finally, the annual efficiency of natural disaster losses is not high in all regions, and the efficiency values are higher in the eastern coastal regions than in the central and western regions. Accordingly, this paper proposes that each province should formulate relevant disaster prevention and economic development strategies according to regional characteristics, while the central government should also propose locally appropriate coordinated governance policies to effectively control carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution, as well as increase disaster prevention publicity and incorporate disaster prevention education-related work into the performance assessment mechanism of local governments to promote the interactive development of the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water scarcity is increasingly being recognized as a global concern. Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG-6) was established by the United Nations to address water resource governance within its sustainable development framework. This study employs the entropy weight method and a two-stage cyclical dynamic slacks-based measure (SBM) model to scientifically evaluate water resource utilization and governance across various regions in China. The findings reveal notable disparities in both the production and governance efficiency of water resources. Recognizing governance efficiency is crucial for promoting sustainable water resource utilization and socioeconomic development. The eastern, central, and western regions encounter unique challenges in attaining sustainability. The eastern region exhibits minimal potential for enhancing technical efficiency, necessitating interventions in management strategies and resource allocation. Conversely, the challenges in the central and western regions are more pronounced, demanding immediate implementation of new technologies and equipment. The data analysis in this study yields conclusions that offer targeted improvement recommendations to address disparities across China's eastern, central, and western regions, and this is achieved by considering various developmental stages and regional contexts. These recommendations cover areas such as technical support, financial investment, and policy incentives, with the aim of enhancing the sustainable utilization of water resources in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, struggling to balance environmental protection and economic growth is fundamental for the transformation of economic growth model in future. This research uses the dynamic DEA model and incorporates it into non-radial DDF. Then, the research estimates the provincial environmental performance in China during the observation period. Taking into account technological heterogeneity, in this study, the evaluated provinces are divided into two groups (temperate region and tropical and subtropical regions). The empirical findings reveal the following. (1) Most of the provinces have considerable room for enhancement in environmental performance. (2) The environmental performance of provinces in temperate regions is obviously worse than that of those in the tropical and subtropical regions. (3) Provinces in temperate region should improve environmental efficiency by reducing both their technology gap and managerial inefficiency compared to those in the tropical and subtropical regions. Considering in future that China's population will continue to shift from inland areas to coastal areas, especially large coastal cities, each province should take targeted policies to improve environmental performance according to their own situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Report: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) set a goal global warming of 1.5°C on global temperature change. Extreme climate changes have increased the demand for electricity consumption by people and enterprises. In fact, China's total power generation in 2019 exceeded 25% of the world's amount, and its thermal power generation accounted for more than 70%. Although past research on electricity efficiency seldom discusses the issue of climate change, the topic still remains important. This research thus considers extreme temperature days (climate change variable) as exogenous variable and uses the Two-Stage Meta Under exogenous undesirable EBM model to examine power efficiency in China. The results are as follows. (1) In the west only Qinghai's GDP, CO2, PM2.5, and electricity consumption have technology gap ratio (TGR) efficiency values of 1 in the 5 years. (2) China's electricity consumption has the same trend with the TGR efficiency of CO2 and is higher than PM2.5. (3) The national overall efficiency, meta overall efficiency, and TGR overall efficiency are the worst in China's west region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, the construction industry has contributed significantly to China's economic growth. The heavy energy consumption inevitably leads to the release of large amounts of carbon emissions. Improving energy efficiency has been a crucial solution for mitigating the environmental impacts while boosting its green economy in the construction industry. Measuring the energy efficiency in the construction industry considering the quality of government sector is still limited. Using panel provincial data in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper proposes a two-stage dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework integrating the government sector with the production sector in the construction industry, and calculates energy efficiency. The spatial Durbin model is used to analyze the driving forces of energy efficiency. The research findings include (1) the energy efficiency in the eastern region is higher than that in the central and western regions. The mean values of energy efficiency in the eastern, central, and western regions are 0.42, 0.34, and 0.37. (2) Even though governance efficiency is lower than production efficiency, there is a positive correlation between governance efficiency and production efficiency with a correlation coefficient of 0.48. Improving governance efficiency is a significant step to increase the production efficiency and further increase energy efficiency of the construction industry. (3) Digital transformation has a positive effect on governance efficiency but has no effect on production efficiency. The government-production nexus framework provides implications for clarifying the role of government intervention in improving energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green port construction has a profound impact on China's international climate commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050. To examine the carbon emission reduction potential of 20 major ports in the Yangtze River Delta port cluster of China, this study takes the perspective of environmental efficiency and employs dynamic exogenous variable DEA in efficiency evaluation. The results show the increasing environmental efficiency of the ports in the Yangtze River Delta, rising from 0.5116 in 2013 to 0.7276 in 2019. Also, there are significant spatial differences in efficiency. After considering exogenous variable, the average efficiency has increased from 0.5537 to 0.6276, indicating that regional green development is a critical factor in port environmental efficiency evaluation. Finally, the overall efficiency of input and output have risen, the slackness of carbon emission shows a trend of decreasing, and there is great potential for reducing carbon emissions from the perspective of port environmental efficiency. The previous studies paid less attention to dynamic efficiency, exogenous variables, and carbon emission. Therefore, this paper is the first comprehensive examination on the carbon emission reduction potential of China's Yangtze River Delta port cluster from the perspective of dynamic environmental efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes Jiangsu as an example to measure the carbon emissions from the electric power industry from 2002 to 2017, builds an extended STIRPAT model to quantify its driving factors, and uses the Monte Carlo method to simulate the evolution of carbon emissions in multiple scenarios from 2018 to 2030. The results show that: (1)Population scale, urbanization level, GDP per capita, industrial added value, and electricity consumption intensity promote the increase of carbon emissions in the electric power industry. (2)Trade openness and the transmission level of other provinces play a role in reducing carbon emissions. (3)Under the baseline scenario and the green development scenario, the carbon emissions of the electric power industry have shown a continuous growth trend, but the growth rate of carbon emissions has slowed down significantly under the green development scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the country with the largest coal mining production and consumption in the world, but due to a large amount of coal burning, air pollution and climate change are exasperating related problems. The previous literature mainly has discussed coal mine production and environmental pollution, but failed to take into account external factors such as climate change and seldom discussed the relationship between coal mine land use and land restoration. Therefore, this study uses the meta‐Epsilon‐Based Measure two‐stage Data Envelopment Analysis under the exogenous model and incorporates coal mine land use and land restoration use into the model to explore the relationship between the two under climate change. The research results are as follows. (1) If the external climate factors are not considered, then the phenomenon of overestimation or underestimation of the technology gap arises. (2) The efficiency value of the coal mining stage in most provinces is generally higher than the land restoration efficiency value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines performance of provincial health‐care system in China, using a dynamic network data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. We focus on efficiency improvements both within provincial health‐care system and within two separate internal sub‐divisions. The administration division engages in financial management while the medical care division provides medical care services. Then there are two main results. First, the average overall efficiency score of provincial health‐care system is 0.9316 from 2010 to 2017. Second, the productivity progress in administration division is lower than that in medical care division, and the technical advances contribute most of the productivity progress. The research gap and the innovation of this paper lie in three aspects: First, this paper opens the black box of health production function and use the network DEA to analyze Chinese provincial health‐care system and its inner two constructs. Second, this paper discusses the efficiency scores as well as dynamic changes in one model. Finally, this paper tries to reveal the regional heterogeneity of static efficiency as well as the dynamic efficiency changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific evaluation of the sustainable development efficiency of China's large and medium‐sized cities has far‐reaching significance to how to improve the well‐being of residents and improve the level of sustainable development. This research uses the parallel two‐stage SBM dynamic (PT‐DSBM) model to evaluate the sustainable development efficiency of 33 cities in eastern, central, and western China. The innovation of this article is divided into two points. First of all, the PT‐DSBM model is used to subdivide the sustainable development system into social, economic, and ecological subsystems and closely integrates it with residents' QOL, which further reveals the inherent mechanism of the sustainable development system. Second, the spatiotemporal evolution can further reveal the spatiotemporal changes of sustainable development and residents' QOL within the scope of this investigation. The results show the following. (1) The overall efficiency of urban sustainable development in China is high in the east and west and low in the central. (2) The social subsystem efficiency in western cities exhibits outstanding performance, eastern cities perform better in economic and ecological sustainable subsystems, while the efficiency of residents' QOL remains at a high level in the sample cities as a whole. (3) In the study of spatiotemporal evolution, the concentration of urban sustainable development decreases with time evolution. Finally, this research gives suggestions on social security, stakeholder engagement, and environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contradiction between China's economic development, its need for resources and the protection of the environment is ctitical. Scarce water resources have resulted in a considerable bottleneck restricting the economic development of water‐deficient areas. An objective evaluation of the decoupling state of water consumption and economic development has become an important indicator of regional economic sustainable development. Based on panel data from 2000 to 2017 for six provinces in the arid and semiarid regions of Northwest China, the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index method is employed to decompose the factors of the decoupling index and establish a decoupling relationship model between water consumption and economic development. The reasons that affect the decoupling state of water resource utilization and economic development are herein discussed, and the stability of the decoupling trend is analysed. Based on the overall regional trend, the decoupling state of the arid and semiarid regions in Northwest China improved from weak to strong, but the high decoupling stability index varied among the provinces. The intensity and structure were promotional factors for decoupling water consumption and economic development, and the contribution rate of the intensity factor was higher than that of the structure factor. Income and population were inhibiting factors for decoupling water consumption and economic development, and the contribution rate of the income factor was higher than that of the population factor. Based on these results, corresponding policy recommendations are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese coal enterprises are facing severe challenges due to low-carbon economy requirements and capacity reductions. This paper adopts a dynamic SBM model to compare the mining efficiency of each mining area of a coal company in China. We use total excavation footage, number of working platforms, and machine quantities as input indicators, and coal sales and CO2 emissions as output indicators. It was found that (1) both high efficiency and low efficiency mines maintained their production status each year and did not actively improve over time; (2) energy consumption was the primary indicator affecting comprehensive mining efficiency; and (3) while changes in the market environment did not have any significant impact on coal mining efficiency, coal mine characteristics were found to have some correlations with efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most related topics focus on industrial production, economics, and environmental pollution, few studies discuss industrial production, economic development, environmental pollution, and quality of life together, and those that do fail to recognize how QoL influences agriculture and industry development issues. This research thus takes QoL as an exogenous variable and places agricultural production efficiency and industrial production efficiency as two parallel stages into one stage. The finding is that its addition modifies the overall efficiency of the region, as none of the 30 provinces has reached the efficiency frontier, and there is room for improvement in all of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the leading financial institutions in China, it is crucial for commercial banks to pay attention to environmental protection (E), social responsibility (S), and corporate governance (G) in order to enhance operational efficiency and to advance the high-quality development of the country's social economy. This research explores the market share of banks as exogenous variables in the profit stage and the market and sustainability stage to investigate the efficiency of 20 listed banks in China over 2016–2020 and innovatively incorporates indicators such as green credit, social giving, executive compensation, and ESG score into the meta-dynamic two-stage SBM under the exogenous variable DEA model. The results demonstrate the following. (1) By integrating market share as an exogenous variable in the model, the efficiency estimate is more precise. (2) In overall, UCBs are the most efficient type of banks, JSCBs are the second, SOCBs are the least efficient. All three types of banks are more efficient in profit stage versus the market and sustainability stage, JSCBs perform best in the profit stage, where SOCBs perform best in the market and sustainability stage. The three different bank types' TGR performance is comparable to their efficiency value performance. (3) SOCBs lead in ESG investment and have the best ESG performance due to their distinct state-owned background. With their ongoing dedication to profit maximization and disregard for social responsibility and sustainable development, JSCBs have the worst ESG performance. (4) Policy recommendations are made based on the study's findings for commercial banks, stakeholders, and regulators to support ESG investment and to bring about long-term sustainable development. Finally, as ESG develops in China, future research can consider longer time scales and larger perspectives to investigate the sustainability efficiency of commercial banks themselves, as well as their role in the local economy and industrial transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to strengthen research concerning the impact of climate change on China's water resources, in order to avoid extreme weather events such as regional rainstorms and floods affecting the stable supply of energy and electricity. The goal is to reorganize energy industry allocation to make China's energy the most efficient, which would thus help achieve sustainable development goals. The biggest contribution and of this paper is not only to enlarge the scale and take into account the sustainable aspects, but also to consider climate change factors that have been ignored in the past as exogenous variables. For the first time, we take stock of the optimal allocation of new and tradition energy sources and carbon dioxide. This study uses the Dynamic ZSG-DDF model with exogenous variables and undesirable outputs to find a way to redistribute carbon dioxide, new energy, and tradition energy from different provinces on the premise of maximizing efficiency, thus achieving the goal of reducing carbon and saving the earth. The research results show that the energy efficiency of tradition energy is higher than that of new energy in various provinces. At the same time, the China government must comprehensively review the quota targets of new energy, tradition energy, and carbon dioxide (CO2) in each province as quickly as possible. Currently, the quotas of various provinces are seriously misplaced, and 26 provinces in total have great room for improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the world's largest energy consumer and carbon emitter, but despite unbalanced growth among the eastern, central, and western regions, local financial expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection has increased from 255.1 billion yuan in 2011 to 582.5 billion yuan in 2018. This research thus introduces financial expenditure like a new input into a dynamic meta-frontier non-radial directional distance function to evaluate China's energy and carbon emission efficiency over that period of time. Different from previous studies, after considering financial expenditure we find that most provinces have narrowed their gap with the benchmark frontier, reflecting that increasing financial expenditure does help improve energy and carbon emission efficiency. The results highlight that most provinces should increase their financial expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection, especially in the central and western regions, so as to narrow their technology gap with the eastern region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things has been driving the development of China's transportation industry. This paper used a dynamic direct distance function Data Envelopment Analysis model with internet access as the input index to more comprehensively assess the efficiency and the improvements needed in the application of internet technology in the road transportation industries. It was found that (1) the average total efficiency was higher when the internet influences were considered than when they are not considered. (2) The commercial passenger vehicle, freight vehicle, passenger traffic, and freight volume efficiencies in most provinces were positively affected by the internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital finance is expected to improve the financial development of economic backward regions through its inclusive nature. Therefore, this paper selects the financial data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2017 to evaluate regional finance disparities with the inclusion of digital finance, using the meta‐frontier slack‐based measure dynamic DEA model. The results are as follows. (1) The overall financial efficiency, input efficiency, output efficiency, and TGR in the eastern region are better than those in the non‐eastern region. (2) With the inclusion of digital finance, the finance efficiency gaps in the eastern and non‐eastern regions have expanded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research applies the dynamic slack-based measure (DSBM) model to evaluate the dynamic efficiency of manufacturing companies in the long run and uses the Censored Least Absolute Deviations (CLAD) model to analyze the effect of corporate governance on their overall efficiency and the efficiency of each input factor. We find the following main results. First, overall efficiency of the manufacturing industry listed companies is low. 2) Debt efficiency is lower than the efficiency of shareholders' equity and exhibits a downward trend. 3) Labor efficiency is the lowest among all inputs. 4) The efficiency of the medicine and bio-products industry is the highest, while the efficiency of the paper and printing industry (which causes serious pollution) is the lowest. 5) Companies with low export intensity and high capital intensity are the most efficient, while companies with high export intensity and low capital intensity are the least efficient. 6) Ownership concentration and efficiency have a significantly positive U-shape relationship. 7) Board size and efficiency have a significantly inverted U-shape relationship. 8) An actual controller with a state-owned nature has a significantly negative impact on efficiency. 9) Executive compensation, equity incentive, and institutional ownership have a significantly positive impact on efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovation is a long-term activity with highly unpredictable returns on investment, which makes SMEs with information problems and lack of collateral value be vulnerable to financing constraints when engaging in innovation activities. This study incorporates financing and R&D activities into the evaluation of innovation efficiency and further considers the impact of financial regulation as an external factor in technology-based SMEs in China. This study puts forward a three-stage dynamic DDF-DEA model to explore the overall innovation effi- ciency as well as the efficiency of each stage in technology-based SMEs by dividing the innovation process into three stages, namely the financing stage, R&D stage and operating stage. The study reveals that the overall efficiency of innovation are higher in non-coastal areas of China than in coastal areas. Non-coastal regions have higher efficiency in the financing and operating stages, while coastal regions have higher efficiency in the R&D stage. Strengthening financial regulation could improve the financing and R&D efficiency both in coastal and non-coastal areas, but it has different effect on the operating efficiency in coastal and non-coastal areas. The results of this study could provide some reference for China and other emerging economies to formulate policies in improving the efficiency of financing and R&D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of knowledge innovation and technology innovation provides vitality for social science and technology innovation. China leaps into the front ranks of the world in the 2021 Global Innovation Index (GII). Therefore, this research takes China's theoretical-application innovation as the research object and empirically analyzes measure the innovation efficiency of knowledge innovation dominated by universities and technological innovation dominated by enterprises in China, as well as the gravity-center migration trajectory. The results show that the ranking of overall efficiency of theoretical innovation-application innovation is eastern region > central region > western region. Knowledge innovation presents a drag on overall efficiency, while technology innovation offers a contribution to overall efficiency. In the analysis of PIE (R&D personnel of industrial enterprises above a designated size) variables, the efficiency value is relatively low. The peak value of kernel density increases in the eastern, central and western regions, namely the concentration degree of theoretical innovation-application innovation effi- ciency in China has risen. The gravity center of each stage migrates to the eastern region, meaning the efficiency value of China's theoretical innovation and application innovation increases more significantly in the eastern region. From the perspective of knowledge innovation and technology innovation, this paper puts forward suggestions for China and provides some references for other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China strengthened environmental regulation to inhibit the formation of new pollution havens and to change its growth mode. This study explores the efficiency for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) with the inclusion of environmental regulation in 31 Chinese provinces over the period 2015–2017, using a dynamic direction distance function‐data envelopment analysis (DDF‐DEA) model. The empirical results show that the mean overall efficiencies and ranks in the eastern region are significantly higher than those in the non‐eastern regions with or without environmental regulation, but the environmental regulation has a greater impact on the efficiency of attracting FDI in the economically developed areas. The average efficiencies for both the number of foreign companies and FDI amount in the eastern regions are higher than those in the non‐eastern regions. The industrial pollution control expenditure efficiency with the inclusion of environmental regulation of each province keeps in efficiency frontier. Relative to the efficiency of input variables, the output efficiencies in the non‐eastern regions have more scope to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because the liquor industry is an important industry in China, alcohol companies have greater social responsibilities when upgrading their production processes to improve efficiencies. Two main data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods have been used for efficiency analyses: radial models, such as CCR (Charnes, Cooper, Rhodes) and BCC (Banker, Charnes, Cooper) and non-radial methods such as SBM (slacks-based model); however, both have disadvantages. The radial DEA model ignores the non-radial slacks and the non-radial DEA model ignores the characteristics of the same proportion in the radial DEA model. Therefore, this research used a dynamic two-stage directional distance function (DDF) model to analyse the production efficiencies of Chinese listed liquor companies from 2016 to 2018 by evaluating each company's poverty alleviation input efficiencies, business operations efficiencies, and their social responsibility efficiencies, which was based on their wastewater treatment efficiencies. To overcome the disadvantages in traditional data envelopment models, the DDF model consisted of both input and output direction vectors, the indicator values for which indicated their relative importance or priorities. The analyses found that the indicator efficiencies at most liquor companies had declined, with the poverty alleviation indicator efficiencies being generally lower than the wastewater treatment indicator efficiencies. Several policy and management recommendations are given to improve the overall corporate efficiency and social responsibility in the Chinese liquor industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the modified dynamic SBM (slack‐based measures) method to evaluate the wastewater treatment efficiency and sludge treatment efficiency of various province regions in China. Findings show that although the efficiency of reclaimed water and sludge disposal in China's sewage treatment industry continued to increase, it was still insufficient, meaning this industry has a lot of room for improvement here. From the regional perspective, the treatment efficiency of reclaimed water and sludge in this industry in the eastern region is the best, whereas the performances in the western region are better than those in the central region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rapid economic growth in China has resulted in a commensurate increase in energy consumption, which in turn has seen an increase in environmental pollution problems. Past research has tended to focus on energy and environmental efficiency analyses and has rarely examined the media influence on environmental protection efforts. Further, most studies have used static models and ignored the dynamic changes over time. Methods: To go some way to filling this research gap, this study developed a modified undesirable Dynamic DEA model that included air quality index (AQI) and CO2 indicators to explore the relationships between energy, the environment, and media report efficiencies in 31 Chinese cities from 2013 to 2016. Results: It was found that: (1) Chongqing, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai had efficiencies of 1, but Lanzhou, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Xining and Yinchuan needed significant improvements; (2) Chongqing, Guangzhou, Kunming, Nanning and Shanghai had relatively high media efficiencies, but the other cities had low efficiencies and required improvements; (3) the CO2 emissions efficiencies in most cities were better than the air quality index efficiencies; and 4. the media reports in most cities were found to have a more positive impact on the CO2 emissions efficiency than on the AQI efficiency. Conclusions: Environmental awareness enhances civilian health and promotes economic growth. Therefore, as the news media should be responsible for promoting environmental protection, they need to increase their environmental pollution coverage. It was found that the environmental pollution media report quality and especially air pollution reports needed improvements, and greater media coverage on environmental pollution and awareness was needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, the contradiction between rapid economic development and water shortage has attracted much attention. This paper explores the problems of water consumption and environmental pollution in provinces with different economic development levels in China. Sewage discharge is put into the undesirable meta frontier dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model as an undesirable output variable. The water use efficiency under different income levels from 2013 to 2017 is compared at the provincial level from the perspective of domestic water use efficiency, ecological water use efficiency, industrial water use efficiency and agricultural water use efficiency, and the dynamic evolution is further revealed by using kernel density estimation. The results show that water resource utilisation efficiency is positively correlated with regional income level and economic development level. The internal differences in high‐income areas are narrowing, while the internal differences in middle‐income areas are significantly expanding; agricultural water use efficiency is the most prominent problem. In view of these situations, the total amount and intensity of water consumption should be controlled in high‐income areas. For middle‐income provinces with abundant water resources but low efficiency, local governments can strengthen legislation and supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's commercial banks have developed at a very rapid speed in recent decades. However, with global economic development slowing down, the impact of gross domestic product growth as an exogenous factor cannot be ignored. Most existing studies only consider the internal factors of banks, and neglect their external economic factors. This study thus adopts an undesirable dynamic slacks-based measure under an exogenous model in combination with the Kernel density curve to explore the efficiency of state-owned commercial banks (SOCBs), joint-stock commercial banks (JSCBs), and urban commercial banks (UCBs) in China from 2012 to 2018. The results show that SOCBs have the highest overall efficiency, followed by JSCBs, then UCBs. The efficiencies of SOCBs, JSCBs, and UCBs in the financing stage are greater than those in the investment stage, indicating that the latter stage brings down overall efficiency. Thus, all commercial banks need to focus on the efficiency of non-performing loans and return on capital. Finally, SOCBs need to strengthen internal controls, reduce non-performing loans and improve return on capital. JSCBs should actively expand its business while controlling costs, and UCBs should optimize its management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water pollution caused by heavy metal leaves human beings exposed to various health risks. Although many studies have focused on the efficiency of industrial water use (IWU) systems, few studies further address analysis for the harmful effect of heavy metal polluted water on human health. This paper first considers both IWU and healthcare (HC) systems as an integrated two-stage IWUHC system. Detailed efficiencies and its dynamic evolution are further revealed by integrating a dynamic two-stage DEA model within a slacks-based measure and Kernel density estimation. Results are as follows: (1) During 2011–2017, the IWUHC systems for 30 provinces in China have low efficiencies, which may have been caused by the bad performance of HC sub-system. The rankings of the average IWU efficiencies in four regions are in agreement with that of HC sub-system: northeastern, eastern, western, and central regions. (2) Provincial differences of IWU efficiencies are more significant than that of HC sub-system. The two-level distribution of IWUHC efficiencies is not helpful for improving IWUHC efficiencies in the eastern and western regions. (3) Understanding the dynamic evolution of the detailed efficiencies and the key indicator efficiencies provide governments with differentiated and forward-looking suggestions toward promoting IWUHC efficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to understand how local enterprises establish brand awareness through tough entrepreneurship as well as focus on international markets so as to inject new ideas and to promote brand value. Examining this issue experimentally on B coffee company with data from Taiwan and China during 2010 to 2012, we use Network Meta-Frontier Data Envelopment Analysis to estimate the cross-strait performances of this firm in order to examine their differences and to propose direction for subsequent improvement. The empirical results are as follows. First, from 2010 to 2012 the channel scale and output in Taiwan is superior to that in China. Second, the performance of China's channels is on the decline with large fluctuations, whereas Taiwan's channels are getting better. Third, analyzing the average efficiency value of both sides comprehensively, we find that Taiwan's channels perform more steadily due to a longer time of establishment and more mature allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the world's largest energy consumer, and coal accounts for a higher proportion of the country's total energy consumption, yet during its 12th five‐year plan (2011–2015), the coal share among total energy consumption significantly decreased. Previous studies exploring energy performance typically used energy consumption as an input, but this lacks the analytical capacity for the structure of energy consumption. Thus, this study splits energy input into two different inputs, coal consumption and non‐coal energy consumption, and based on their differences with other variables, uses the hybrid dynamic data envelopment analysis model to assess the energy performance of China's provincial industrial sector during the period 2011 to 2015. We then compare coal consumption's and non‐coal consumption's rooms for improvement and conclude that provinces in eastern and central China should reduce the amount of coal consumption, thereby improving energy performance. Conversely, provinces in the western region should target a balance between energy utilization efficiency and coal consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantitatively analyzes the impact of digital finance on financial efficiency. The results show that digital finance has slightly improved the efficiency of the financial sector, but there are significant differences in the impact of provincial efficiency in China. Although financial sector efficiency positively correlates with digital financial efficiency, digital finance gives backward regions disadvantages. The efficiency score and ranking of the financial sector in the eastern region are significantly higher than noneastern region. The progressive effect of digital finance on the efficiency of the financial sector in the eastern region is better than that in the noneastern region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper selects energy consumption data of 11 provinces in YRB and 19 provinces and cities in non-YRB from 2014 to 2016 and constructs a shared border Metafrontier non-radial directional short model, adding CO2 and AQI indicators as undesirable factors, in order to evaluate the total efficiency and the input and output efficiencies of these two regions. The results are as follows. (1) From the changes in the score and ranking of the two regions' total environmental efficiency, only two provinces in YRB show a slight decrease, while most of them show a stable or rising trend; seven provinces in non-YRB have a low rising rate. This means during the study period that YRB made more progress at energy conservation, emission reduction, and pollution control than other provinces and cities in non-YRB. (2) The efficiency scores of energy consumption, GDP, CO2, and AQI emissions are different in each province. Overall, the situation of YRB is better than that of non-YRB. Not only is the efficiency score of each index higher, but the efficiency difference between provinces and cities within the region is small, which is conducive to the linkage effect of the region and the realization of green coordinated development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, as China has become the factory of the world, China's industrial sectors have become the country's main source of energy consumption and emissions including CO2, SO2, NOx and soot. This article will use the non-radial directional dispersion function model (DDF) to explore ways to improve both the energy efficiency and the emission efficiency of China's industrial sectors. Based on current research, this article proposes a new projected input for the treatment of industrial waste gas, and optimizes the projected input and output settings. The data analysis shows that there is room for improvement in China's energy efficiency, and its regional imbalances have expanded. The Chinese government is urged to pay more attention to the improvement of energy efficiency in the central and western regions, and to provide more policy support. Simultaneously, the paper attemtps to establish measurement indexes to improve the efficiency of emission reduction. As a result, the authors suggest that increasing government expenditure can play a positive role in the overall improvement of emission reduction efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy is vital to economic progress; however, global climate change and environmental damage have been caused by the increased need for fossil fuel resources. The rapid increase in urbanization and the associated construction projects have resulted a significant pollution, such as CO2, SO2, NO2 and particulate matter (PM2.5), which has begun to cause severe health problems and damage environments. This study used a dynamic data envelopment analysis to analyze the environmental energy, CO2, AQI (air quality index), and gross domestic product (GDP) efficiencies in 31 cities in China from 2013 to 2016. It was found that except for five cities – Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Lhasa and Nanning – that achieved efficiency scores of 1, there was significant room for improvement in urban air pollution indicator efficiencies. The AQI efficiency scores in most cities were generally significantly lower than the CO2 efficiency scores; however, the AQI was observed to have a greater impact. Therefore, emphasis needs to be placed on AQI control and governance. The average efficiency of the eastern region is better than average efficiency of the western region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth in the world economy has resulted in an increase in environmental pollution and ecological destruction in many parts of the world. In particular, economic development in mainland China in recent years has seen a massive rise in environmental pollution such as particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NO2) in many cities; as a result, there has been an increased focus on air pollution and carbon dioxide emission control in recent years. This study used 2013–2017 energy consumption data from 31 cities in China to examine overall and specific efficiencies, for which employees, fixed assets, and energy consumption were taken as the input indicators, and gross domestic product (GDP) and the PM2.5, SO2, and NO2 levels as the output indicators. It was found that from 2013 to 2017, only four cities (Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanning, and Shanghai) had total efficiency scores of 1, with all other cities needing efficiency improvements. The efficiency scores for the different pollutants varied widely, with the NO2 efficiencies being generally higher with less improvement needed, while the SO2 and PM2.5 efficiencies required significantly greater governance measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid economic growth in China has resulted in a significant increase in particulate matter (PM2.5) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), the reduction of which has become a primary government focus. However, as the energy consumption and air pollutant emissions in Chinese cities have very significant regional characteristics, individual governance measures are necessary. This study used 2013 to 2016 energy consumption data from 31 Chinese cities to evaluate the dynamic efficiency of the urban environments. Labor, fixed assets, and energy consumption were taken as the inputs, gross domestic product (GDP) was taken as the output, and particulate matter (PM2.5) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) were taken as the carry-over variable indicators. Using a meta-frontier dynamic DEA model, the 31 cities were classified into high-income and upper-middle-income cities, the overall 2013-2016 energy consumption and air pollutant efficiency scores were analyzed, and improvements and changes were recommended to increase the efficiencies. Large differences were found in the energy consumption and air pollution emissions efficiency scores and the needed improvements, with the hig-income cities performing better overall than the upper-middle-income cities. While there have been some significant improvements in SO2 emissions, PM2.5 improvements have been far slower. Therefore, in most cities, more control measures are needed to control PM2.5 emissions. However, in addition to improving PM2.5 in the upper-middle-income cities, SO2treatments are also needed. Implications: There are big differences in the expectation of improvement of the two pollutants in all cities. In many Western cities, the expectation of PM2.5 improvement in the past years has not been reduced, but has been expanding. This shows that the central government has unified the air pollution control policies and the existing air pollution control measures formulated and implemented by the local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumption is evidenced to play an increasing significant role accompanied by economic transition in China. Carbon emissions caused by consumption are becoming an important growth point of carbon emissions. The size of China's middle-income groups is growing and is expected to reach 60 % of the population in 2035. However, the amount of indirect carbon emissions from household consumption (ICEHCs) of middle-income groups and the effects of their drivers have not been quantitatively assessed. In response, this paper adopts input-output tables to calculate urban-rural middle-income groups' ICEHCs from 2012 to 2018, and uses structural decomposition analysis to determine the effects of drivers and sectors. Results are as follows: Urban-rural middle-income groups' ICEHCs in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) are increasing and its differences are significant, and present a spatial pattern of high in the eastern region while low in the western region. S22 (Production and Supply of Electric Power, Steam and Hot Water) becomes the main sector of carbon emissions, which accounts for about 70.00 % of the total middle-income groups' ICEHCs in 2018. Consumption pattern is the predominant driver for promoting urban-rural middle-income groups' ICEHCs, whereas production structure is the predominant restraining driver. • Middle-income groups' ICEHCs are calculated and S22 is the main sector. • The drivers and main sectoral sources of household energy consumption are explored. • Consumption pattern is the predominant driver for promoting ICEHCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on relevant data from 2014 to 2018, this research first evaluates the efficiencies of the industry production stage and environmental treatment stage via the dynamic two-stage SBM recycle model. Second, it employs the two-stage ZSG-SBM recycle model to optimize the allocation of resource usage and pollutant recovery variables of different provinces of China in 2025 according to the national plan, so as to find a path to realize the policy document goals of Made in China 2025. The empirical results show that the efficiencies of the east, central, and west regions nearly show a downward trend, and that two-level differentiation in the central region is large. In order to meet the planning requirements, the eastern provinces need to adjust and emit the least amount of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of industrial added value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use the meta-frontier network DEA approach to evaluate the innovation efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2009 to 2011. These provinces have been classified into two groups based on their levels of economic development. The first group comprises provinces in the Eastern region, while the second group comprises provinces in the Central and Western regions. First, we use the meta-frontier network DEA method to estimate the technology gaps of innovation efficiency between different operating types. Second, the quadrant analysis method explores the reasons for efficiency losses. Finally, we take the fixed effect model to examine whether industry-university-research cooperation influences technology efficiency. The empirical results indicate (i) the Eastern region has significantly higher innovation efficiency than the Central and Western regions. (ii) Some Eastern provinces have a high technology level, yet their resource allocation capabilities still need to be improved. (iii) Industry-university-research cooperation is an effective way to improve innovation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study constructs the research and development (R&D) and operation processes as a value-chain framework, in which R&D results in the successful applications of patents. These patents are then used to generate final outputs in the operation. We introduce an empirical model extended from the value-chain model to compute the R&D and the operation efficiencies for 21 of China's high-tech businesses in a single implementation. The findings are presented as follows. First, R&D efficiency is not related to operation efficiency. Second, communication businesses have relatively higher performance in R&D and operation efficiencies, whereas electronics and computer businesses have high operation efficiency, but low R&D efficiency. Finally, for improving the efficiencies, the patents that do not effectively create value should be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a modified two-stage DEA model based on the model of Chen and Zhu (2004) to evaluate China's agricultural efficiency and repaired efficiency (for stricken cultivated land) in a single DEA implementation. The government expenditures and the difference of various cultivated land types are identified as the external influence factors for agricultural efficiency in former works. Those are internalized into the empirical model. The results indicate that the repaired and agricultural efficiencies are positively correlated on a significant level, which implies an efficient utilization of governmental service expenditures that in turn drives high performance in agricultural efficiency. The external effects analysis finds that increasing the degree of education for agricultural employees improves the agricultural efficiency and that developing a mechanized irrigation system is beneficial in enhancing repaired efficiency for fallow land. Information on repaired cultivated land utilization, which was extracted from analysis on optimal ratios and includes the quantity of excess and deficit for each region, is also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this era of rapid economic development, it is inevitable that economic activities eventually cause serious damage to the environment's air quality, making it the focus of global public health. If the treatment efficiency of medical accidents can be improved, then this can significantly stabilize society and improve production efficiency. Past research has mainly focused on work safety and health issues, seldom discussing economic, social, medical, and environmental pollution issues together, and, most generally, adopted static methods that fail to recognize how air pollution affects the overall economy, society, medical care, and external environment. In order to more deeply understand the changes among social, economic activities, and environmental issues due to air pollution, this study proposes a meta-two-stage undesirable dynamic DDF (Direction Distance Function) that, under an exogenous model, divides the 30 provinces of China into high-income regions and middle-income regions and explores the economic, social, medical, and environmental efficiencies between the two areas to resolve the lack of related static analyses. The empirical results are as follows. (1) The AQI (air quality index) significantly impacts the efficiency of medical injuries in various regions. (2) When the AQI is considered, the medical insurance expenditure efficiency score value of high-income areas is lower than the value without the AQI. (3) When the AQI is considered, the efficiency value of the number of work injury insurance benefits in the middle-income area is lower than the efficiency value without the AQI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas has become an important energy source as its combustion is much cleaner than coal combustion and emits significantly less carbon. However, as natural gas combustion does result in some carbon emissions, government policy and monitor are needed to improve natural gas use, and reduce CO 2 emissions. Previous research has tended to focus on natural gas production efficiency and the relationships between natural gas and economic growth; however, there have been few papers focused on natural gas consumption efficiency evaluations in terms of urban and industrial energy consumption efficiency and CO 2 emissions efficiency. To fill this research gap, this study examined the natural gas consumption efficiencies (Natural gas consumption efficiency refers to the efficiency of natural gas from production to final consumer purchase) in 30 provinces/municipalities/autonomous in China from 2007 to 2016 by collecting and analyzing the main natural gas industry input-output index data: labor, natural gas pipe length, fixed assets, natural gas sales volume, residential gas supply, gas losses, and CO 2 emissions. An Undesirable DDF (directional distance function) Dynamic Data Envelopment Analysis model was then used to analyze and compare the efficiencies in each natural gas industry index (gas industry index indicates whole indicator used on efficiency evaluation in this paper, such as labor, natural gas pipe length, natural gas sales volume, residential natural gas supply, natural gas losses, CO 2 emission) in each province. We also set carry over variable which can link each period, here fixed assets is set as carry over due to its character that accumulates over period. It was found that the overall efficiency in 16 provinces. had been declining year on year and there were significant improvements needed in natural gas pipe length and natural gas losses; however, it was also found that the natural gas industry in most province s needed to place greater importance on improving CO 2 emissions efficiency. The results indicated that to improve overall gas industry operating efficiency and CO 2 emission efficiency, new technologies were needed in several key areas: pipeline design, construction and maintenance management to reduce the loss rate in the old pipeline infrastructure, natural gas facilities to improve energy use, and personnel training and management to improve construction capabilities. This study is an interdisciplinary survey. Natural gas is an energy issue, CO2 emission is an environmental issue, and the method used in this study is DEA which is widely used in management and economic research. Therefore, this study combines different issues and the empirical data of China to do an interdisciplinary research. • This study examined the natural gas consumption efficiencies in 30 regions in China. • The natural gas industry in most regions needed to greater importance on improving on CO 2 emissions. • The overall efficiency in 16 regions had been declining year on year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first sentence in the abstract needs to be changed from:This research divides the process through which China's higher education investment turned into industrial economic growth between 2014 and 2017 into higher education investment transformation division, knowledge innovation division, and innovation commercialization division, then applies a Network Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model to evaluate the efficiency of the process, and finally uses the individual fixed effect model to analyze its influencing factors. ToThis research divides the process through which China's higher education investment turned into industrial economic growth between 2014 and 2017. The process is broken down into higher education investment transformation division, knowledge innovation division, and innovation commercialization division. This study then applies a Network Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model to evaluate the efficiency of the process, and finally uses the individual fixed effect model to analyze its influencing factors. • Evaluates the efficiency of the process turning higher education investment into industrial economic growth. • Overall input-output efficiency of China's education is still low. • The efficiency of the higher education investment transformation division is the highest among the three divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research on the relationships between economic development, energy consumption, environmental pollution, and human health has tended to focus on the relationships between economic growth and air pollution, energy and air pollution, or the impact of air pollution on human health. However, there has been little past research focused on all the above associations. Methods: The few studies that have examined the interconnections between the economy, energy consumption, environmental pollution and health have tended to employ regression analyses, DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis), or DEA efficiency analyses; however, as these are static analysis tools, the analyses did not fully reveal the sustainable economic, energy, environmental or health developments over time, did not consider the regional differences, and most often ignored community health factors. To go some way to filling this gap, this paper developed a modified two stage Undesirable Meta Dynamic Network model to jointly analyze energy consumption, economic growth, air pollution and health treatment data in 31 Chinese high-income and upper-middle income cities from 2013–2016, for which the overall efficiency, production efficiency, healthcare resource utilization efficiency and technology gap ratio (TGR) for all input and output variables were calculated. Results: It was found that: (1) the annual average overall efficiency in China's eastern region was the highest; (2) the production stage efficiencies were higher than the healthcare resource utilization stage efficiencies in most cities; (3) the high-income cities had lower TGRs than the upper–middle income cities; (4) the high-income cities had higher average energy consumption efficiencies than the upper-middle income cities; (5) the health expenditure efficiencies were the lowest of all inputs; (6) the high-income cities' respiratory disease and mortality rate efficiencies were higher than in the upper–middle income cities, which had improving mortality rate efficiencies; and (7) there were significant regional differences in the annual average input and output indicator efficiencies. Conclusions: First, the high-income cities had higher average efficiencies than the upper-middle income cities. Of the ten eastern region high-income cities, Guangzhou and Shanghai had average efficiencies of 1, with the least efficient being Shijiazhuang. In the other regions, the upper-middle income cities required greater technology and health treatment investments. Second, Guangzhou, Lhasa, Nanning, and Shanghai had production efficiencies of 1, and Guangzhou, Lhasa, Nanning, Shanghai and Fuzhou had healthcare resource utilization efficiencies of 1. As the average production stage efficiencies in most cities were higher than the healthcare resource utilization stage efficiencies, greater efforts are needed to improve the healthcare resource utilization. Third, the technology gap ratios (TGRs) in the high-income cities were slightly higher than in the upper-middle income cities. Therefore, the upper-middle income cities need to learn from the high-income cities to improve their general health treatment TGRs. Fourth, while the high-income cities had higher energy consumption efficiencies than the upper-middle income cities, these were decreasing in most cities. There were few respiratory disease efficiency differences between the high-income and upper-middle income cities, the high-income cities had falling mortality rate efficiencies, and the upper-middle income cities had increasing mortality rate efficiencies. Overall, therefore, most cities needed to strengthen their health governance to balance economic growth and urban expansion. Fifth, the average AQI efficiencies in both the high-income and upper-middle income cities were higher than the average CO2 efficiencies. However, the high-income cities had lower average CO2 emissions and AQI efficiencies than the upper-middle income cities, with the AQI efficiency differences between the two city groups expanding. As most cities were focusing more on air pollution controls than carbon dioxide emissions, greater efforts were needed in coordinating the air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions treatments. Therefore, the following suggestions are given. (1) The government should reform the hospital and medical systems. (2) Local governments need to strengthen their air pollution and disease education. (3) High-income cities need to improve their healthcare governance to reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases and the associated mortality. (4) Healthcare governance efficiency needs to be prioritized in 17 upper-middle income cities, such as Hangzhou, Changchun, Harbin, Chengdu, Guiyang, Kunming and Xi'an, by establishing sound medical management systems and emergency environmental pollution treatments, and by increasing capital asset medical investments. (5) Upper-middle income cities need to adapt their treatment controls to local conditions and design medium to long-term development strategies. (6) Upper-middle income cities need to actively learn from the technological and governance experiences in the more efficient higher-income cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economy in recent decades has developed at a very rapid speed, as evidenced by its GDP jumping to second place in the world. Although utilization of domestic water resources has helped spur economic development, sewage discharge as an undesirable output has unfortunately caused many negative effects on human health, causing concern from all walks of life. Therefore, governments in China at all levels are committed to urban sewage treatment policies in order to reduce the negative impact of water pollution on society. While most existing studies have targeted the macro-level modes of economic development and environmental pollution, their selection of research objects is too narrow by failing to adequately consider China's water pollution and the consequential national health crisis. This study takes cities in 30 provinces of China as the research objects and applies various influencing factors of urban wastewater treatment and health (as two stages) to the modified two-stage dynamic Slacks-Based Measures (SBM) Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. The results reveal that the overall efficiency of each province is increasing and that the efficiency of the wastewater treatment stage is greater, thus contributing to overall efficiency. Conversely, the health stage's efficiency is far lower than the wastewater treatment stage's efficiency, which has a notably adverse effect on overall efficiency. In addition, most input-output variables need much improvement. Based on the findings herein, we offer specific suggestions to each province for improving sewage treatment capacity, the level of medical care, and the quality of national health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental pollutant emissions have become increasingly serious, and the resulting human health problems have become the focus of social attention. In this study, 30 provinces in China were selected as the object of study, SO2, NOX (nitrogen oxide), and PM2.5 were taken as undesirable outputs, and a meta-frontier dynamic data envelopment analysis model was adopted to avoid the disadvantages of static analysis. In this paper, energy efficiency, environmental pollution efficiency, and human health efficiency were incorporated into a unified analysis framework by constructing a two-stage model of the production and health stages. The study shows that the total efficiency score of nine provinces and cities, including Beijing, is 1. However, the score of two-stage efficiency in most provinces, such as Anhui, is less than 1, and the score of production efficiency is higher than that of health efficiency. In the second stage, the average efficiency of health expenditure and medical staff input is low, so it is necessary to make targeted improvement. In this regard, it is necessary for the government to increase health expenditure to improve the overall level of health efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of China's economy in recent years has greatly improved its citizens' living standards, but economic growth consumes many various energy sources as well as produces harmful air pollution. Nitrogen oxides, SO2 (sulfur dioxide), and other polluting gases are damaging the environment and people's health, with a particular spike in incidences of many air pollution-related diseases in recent years. While there have been many documents discussing China's energy and environmental issues in the past, few of them analyze economic development, air pollution, and residents' health together. Therefore, this study uses the modified undesirable dynamic two-stage DEA (data envelopment analysis) model to explore the economic, environmental, and health efficiencies of 30 provinces in China. The empirical results show the following: (1) Most provinces have lower efficiency values in the health stage than in the production stage. (2) Among the provinces with annual efficiency values below 1, their energy consumption, CO2 (carbon dioxide), and NOx (nitrogen oxide) efficiency values have mostly declined from 2013 to 2016, while their SO2 efficiency values have increased (less SO2 emissions). (3) The growth rate of SO2 efficiency in 2016 for 10 provinces is much higher than in previous years. (4) The health expenditure efficiencies of most provinces are at a lower level and show room for improvement. (5) In most provinces, the mortality rate is higher, but on a decreasing trend. (6) Finally, as representative for a typical respiratory infection, most provinces have a high level of tuberculosis efficiency, indicating that most areas of China are highly effective at respiratory disease governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]