An evaluation of the impact of environmental regulation on the efficiency of technology innovation using the combined DEA model: A case study of Xi'an, China

The objective of this paper is to explore the impact of environmental regulation on the efficiency of technological innovation and its temporal and spatial evolution in an innovative city with a combined Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. DEA is a common non-parametric frontier model for studying multi-input and multi-output systems. The DEA method uses an input-output index data to mine information such as technology frontier and efficiency evaluation relative to reference technology. Using environmental factors, the efficiency of technological innovation in Xi'an from 2006 to 2015 is measured. The research results show that low scale efficiency is the main factor that restricts the efficiency of technological innovation in innovative city Xi'an. Environmental regulations have no influence on the measurement of technological innovation efficiency in Xi'an. The Porter hypothesis is not tenable. There are some differences in the pure technical and scale efficiencies of the two subsystems (R&D and technology transformation) of the network DEA model. The technology transformation process has a more important objective position in the innovation system of Xi'an. The results provide a valuable reference for the measurement of technological innovation efficiency and the formulation and implementation of environmental regulation policies in the innovative cities of developing counties.