Toward green IT: Modeling sustainable production characteristics for Chinese electronic information industry, 1980–2012

• The duality theory of non-radialDDF is developed.
• Environmental technical efficiency and environmental regulatory costs are estimated.
• The shadow pricing and inter-factor substitution possibilities are measured.
• Chinese EIM industry during 1980-2012 is empirically investigated.

With the growth of the electronic information industry across the world, China has become a world factory of information technology products. However, the technology and energy efficiency of this industry in China are lower than those in other industrialized countries. In this study, the duality theory of non-radial directional distance function is used to develop a general procedure for modeling sustainable production characteristics for this industry. Using a non-radial efficiency model, environmental technical efficiency and environmental regulatory costs are estimated. In addition, the Porter hypothesis is tested using the Granger causality test. The shadow price of carbon emissions and inter-factor substitution possibilities can be measured using the dual model. The proposed methodology is employed to conduct an empirical study on Chinese electronic information technology manufacturing industry during 1980–2012. Finally, some policy implications are suggested.