Efficiency evaluation of green technology innovation of China's strategic emerging industries: An empirical analysis based on Malmquist-data envelopment analysis index

Green technology innovation is the main driving force for sustainable development of China's strategic emerging industries. Improving the efficiency of green technology innovation is an effective way to achieve this developmental goal. The correct approach to measuring the efficiency of green technology innovation is a hot issue. Based on the panel data of China's 21 subdivided industries of strategic emerging industries over the period from 2004 to 2015, this paper applies the Malmquist index and data envelopment analysis to evaluate the efficiency of green technology innovation in strategic emerging industries. The empirical results show that changes in trends of technology innovation efficiency of strategic emerging industries are increasing, due mainly to technological progress and promotion of technology efficiency. Promotion of technology efficiency results from the joint action of pure technology efficiency increasing (0.1%) and scale efficiency increasing (0.2%). The change index of green technology innovation efficiency varies greatly in different industries, being highest (1.379) in communications switching equipment manufacturers and lowest (0.775) among office equipment manufacturers. There are three obvious troughs in the change index of green technology innovation efficiency over the period from 2004 to 2015. These troughs are declines of 19.5% in 2005, 16% in 2009, and 45.4% in 2012.