The role of industrial structure upgrades in eco-efficiency evolution: Spatial correlation and spillover effects

The Chinese government has grown increasingly invested in ecology in recent years. This paper discusses ecoefficiency using data envelopment analysis on 48 cities in Bohai Rim with special focus on the role of industrial structure upgrades. Based on the values from a super undesirable slack-based model, this study investigates eco-efficiency from temporal and spatial perspectives to reveal gaps among Bohai cities but an overall improvement in regional eco-efficiency. Moreover, this study adopts the Global and Local Moran's I to identify positive spatial autocorrelations and shows that most cites in Bohai Rim have high-high, low-low aggregation characteristics. Plus, the economic effects of per capita GDP, industrial structure upgrades on eco-efficiency are determined according to a spatial Durbin model. There appear to be negative spillover effects of industrial structure upgrades on surrounding cities, which reflects an industry transfer phenomenon related to eco-efficiency. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.