Designing energy policy based on dynamic change in energy and carbon dioxide emission performance of China's iron and steel industry

China's iron and steel industry is the key industry for the state to conserve energy and control CO2 emissions. In this paper, we divide China's administrative regions into three groups using cluster analysis. Then we use energy and carbon dioxide performance index to evaluate the static efficiency in iron and steel industry. After, meta-frontier non-radial Malmquist directional distance function is constructed to measure the dynamic energy and carbon dioxide emission performance. The dynamic indicator is decomposed into efficiency change, best practice gap change, and technology gap change. According to this study, the static energy and carbon dioxide efficiency in China's iron and steel industry still lags behind from 2000 to 2016. Group 1 (mainly eastern provinces of China) has the highest efficiency, followed by group 2, and group 3 (mainly western provinces of China) has the lowest efficiency. The technical efficiency and technical progress are driving factors improving energy and carbon dioxide performance, while the technology gap change does not help to improve the performance. Finally, we propose specific policy recommendations to promote the healthy development of the industry. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.