Regional differences of CO2 emissions performance in China’s agricultural sector: A Malmquist index approach

• We explore the CO2 emissions performance of China’s agricultural sector.
• The CO2 emissions performance display different features in different regions.
• Regional analysis of the MCEPI inequalities is further explored.
• DEA model, Malmquist index and Theil Index approaches are employed in this paper.

This study attempts to employ the Malmquist index approach to evaluate the energy-related CO2 emissions performance of China’s agricultural sector. The evaluation is based on the application of Data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, using the environmental production technology that allows for desirable outputs and undesirable outputs in the production process. The study covers the period 2003–2010 and thirty provincial regions. The values of the Malmquist index and their corresponding components (technical efficiency change and technological progress change) are derived from the distance function. Empirical results show that the average annual growth of the Malmquist index, accounting for the undesirable output CO2, is 6%, and the aggregated growth of the Malmquist index is approximately 48.5%. Additionally, the two components indices help to clarify the role played by technical efficiency change and technological progress change in the final performance. Moreover, in order to illustrate the differences in CO2 emissions performance of the different regions in China, we employ the Theil index methodology for decomposing the Malmquist index in per unit CO2 emissions and provide further analysis.