Green total factor productivity of extractive industries in China: An explanation from technology heterogeneity

Improving the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of the extractive industries is an important way to promote high-quality and green development of the extractive industries in China. Due to technological heterogeneity, the GTFP in China's extractive industries may be biased and cause efficiency losses. Therefore, we calculated the GTFP from 2006 to 2017 based on metafrontier and data envelopment analysis method, and analyzed the influencing factors. The results show that the contribution of the scale efficiency to the growth of the GTFP is greater than the technological progress from the perspective of the metafrontier. The metafrontier Malmquist-Luenberger index of the extractive industries in both the national and provincial dimensions is greater than one from 2006 to 2017. The technical gap ratio of each group is the inverted N type, which gradually increased from 2007 and reached its peak in 2010. The GMM model results show that foreign direct investment has a significant positive impact, and technology and innovation investment, resource endowment, and industrialization level have a significant negative impact. Based on the above results, we suggest that through the government incentive mechanism and related supporting measures, encourage the merger and reorganization among enterprises of extractive industry, strengthen multi-regional exchanges, and encourage the introduction of scarce technologies for clean production in the extractive industry.

Automated summary

The study calculated the green total factor productivity (GTFP) of China's extractive industries from 2006 to 2017 using metafrontier and data envelopment analysis methods, and found that scale efficiency contributes more to GTFP growth than technological progress. The technical gap ratio of the extractive industries increased gradually after 2007, while foreign direct investment had a significant positive impact according to the GMM model results.