The measure of technical efficiency of China's provinces with carbon emission factor and the analysis of the influence of structural variables

This paper applies the directional distance function to measure the technical efficiency incorporates carbon dioxide emissions as an undesirable output of 29 provinces in China from 1978 to 2015. In addition, we presented the best-practice provinces during the representative years and analyzed the structural variables of technical efficiency based on the Tobit model. This study finds that regional economic development model directly impacts its level of technical efficiency, and when the level of economic development is lower, the structural variables, such as energy, industrial and employment structure, have a greater impact on the technical efficiency of the region. Therefore, improving the economic development trajectory is the key to raising the level of regional technical efficiency. By optimizing and upgrading regional energy and industrial structures, ensuring the quality of economic development, the goal of economic sustainable development can be attained. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.