The Efficiency of the Chinese Prefabricated Building Industry and Its Influencing Factors: An Empirical Study

China is a world leader in capital construction. In the construction field, the shift toward prefabricated construction has become an important path for industrial transformation. This paper refers to the development of the prefabricated building industry in China, and uses input and output perspectives to examine its efficiency. It builds a data envelopment analysis model to evaluate the efficiency of the prefabricated building industry in China at both the micro and macro levels, and uses the Tobit model to empirically analyze the factors that influence this industry's efficiency. It finds that the country's prefabricated building industry has a moderate micro-level efficiency. This means that it is necessary to further rationalize industrial planning; strengthen technological innovation; and improve standardization, mechanization, and automation levels. At the macro level, China's prefabricated buildings have a low industrial efficiency and remain at the initial stage of industrial development. A series of problems, such as small industrial scale and unsound policies, are restricting the industry's rapid and efficient development. We propose several countermeasures and suggestions for the (micro- and macro-level) sustainable development of the prefabricated building industry in China, and anticipate that this will have implications for this industry's worldwide development.

Automated summary

This paper examines the development and efficiency of China's prefabricated building industry. The study finds that the industry has moderate efficiency at the micro level but low efficiency at the macro level. It suggests optimizing planning, enhancing innovation, and improving standardization and automation to promote sustainable development in the industry.