Statistical measurement of total factor productivity under resource and environmental constraints

Abstract

The existing literature on the measurement of total factor productivity (TFP) only considers capital and labour input, ignoring resource and environmental factors. This paper takes resource and environmental factors into the framework of TFP measurement by constructing the environmental comprehensive indexes. Then the DEA-Malmquist index method is employed to analyze TFP from 1978 to 2016 under resource and environmental constraints. The results show that under resource and environmental constraints, China’s TFP (overall) is at a slow rising stage. China’s TFP is closely related to macroeconomic fluctuation, macroeconomic regulation, directional control and reform of the economic system—having impact on the changing trend and fluctuation extent of TFP.

Keywords

• resource and environmental constraints
• total factor productivity
• dea-malmquist index