International Comparison of Total Factor Ecology Efficiency: Focused on G20 from 1999-2013

Little attention has been paid to international ecological efficiency, especially taking ecological footprint (EF), labor, and capital into account as multi-inputs to produce GDP in the total-factor framework. This study evaluates the total-factor ecological efficiency (TFEcE) of G20 during the period of 1999-2013 by employing slack-based measure (SBM) with EF as the index of comprehensive ecological inputs. Findings show that the average level of TFEcE of G20 from 1999 to 2013 is at a low level of about 0.54, which means there is a large space for the improvement of TFEcE. Furthermore, TFEcE of G20 is very imbalanced and there is a big gap between developed countries and developing countries in the G20. For the developing countries and developed countries in the G20, the analysis of factors that affect national TFEcE shows different statistical significance in the truncated regression model.