Is metabolism in all regions of China performing well? - Evidence from a new DEA-Malmquist productivity approach

Economic development is generally accompanied by the consumption of ecosystems, so it is particularly essential to evaluate the operation of the economy-ecosystem quantitatively. In this paper, we explore the emergy evaluation indicators system with 23 indicators and measure the change of eco-efficiency in China from 2009 to 2015 by employing a new DEA Malmquist productivity approach. The results show that the economic-ecosystem operation from 2012 to 2015 is getting worse than that from 2009 to 2012. The Malmquist index is then decomposed into efficiency change (EC) and technology change (TC). The annual average value of EC in the first three years is less than 1, and the annual average value of EC in the last three years is more than 1, which indicates that the relative technical efficiency is increasing year by year. From the perspective of technical change, the growth rates of the first three years and three years after are greater than 1, which shows that technology is not the main factor that restricts the operation of the economy and ecosystem in 26 provincial administrative regions.