Environmental pollution emissions, regional productivity growth and ecological economic development in China

- Theoretical model is proposed to assess regional ecological economic development.
- China achieved good ecological development from late 1990s to early this century.
- After setback China restarted the process of ecological economic transition recently.
- Ecological development index can be used to assess the economic growth in China.

Environmental pollution emissions have become an extremely serious problem in China that makes its rapid economic growth unsustainable. This paper estimates the energy and emission adjusted total factor productivity (TFP) and reveals the ecological economic transition by province in the light of their contributions to output. The results indicate that China's ecological development fluctuated before 1992, then turned to improve, and peaked between 1999 and 2002. Due to the reappearance of heavy industrialization, China's ecological development process has reversed course since the beginning of this century.