Spatial Spillover Effect of Green Water Use Efficiency and its Influence Factor: New Evidence from Yellow River Economic Belt, China

Abstract

\n The shortage of fresh water resources is an important factor restriction the sustainable development of the Yellow River Economic Belt (YREB). Increasing Green Water-Use Efficiency (GWUE) is a necessary way to ensure the sustainable development of water resources. Therefore, it is of theoretical significance and practical value to measure GWUE and investigate its influencing factors. Based on the panel data of 98 cities in YREB from 2005–2018, this paper first measures GWUE by global Malmqusit approach which contains unexpected output, and decomposes the comprehensive efficiency into Technological Change (TC), Pure Technical Efficiency Change (PEC) and Scale Efficiency Change (SEC). Furthermore, the spatial correlation of GWUE and decompositon indexs are analyzed by using the spatial Durbin model, and the influence of other interpretations on GWUE is analyzed. The empirical results show that: (1) The average annual growth rate of WGUE is 7.86% during 2005–2018, and the average annual growth rate of TC, PEC, SEC is 2.57%, 3.87% and 1.84% respectively, which all contribute to the improvement of WGUE. (2) GMLPI, TC, PEC, SEC all show the agglomeration characteristics of high-high or low-low , and the GWUE of the local city will be affected by the same direction of the surrounding cities. Every 1% increase in GMLPI, TC, PEC and SEC of surrounding cities will lead to the corresponding index growth of about 0.321%, 0.393%, 0.244% and 0.358% respectively. (3) Industrial structure and foreign direct investment have a negative total effect on GWUE. The expenditure on science and technology, education and population density have significatly promoted technological progress both the local city and surrounding cities. Infrastructure has a significant positive effect on the pure technical efficiency of the city. This paper hodls that the government should strengthen cooperation and technical innovation, optimize foreign capital structure and industrial structure.