The Growth of Environmental TPF of China's Logistics Industry—An Empirical Analysis based on the MML Index

Using SBM directional distance function and Metafrontier-Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index, this paper evaluated environmental total factor productivity(TFP)of China's logistics industry during 2003—2012 with energy consumption as one of the inputs and carbon emission as a bad output. The results show that, the growth of environmental TFP of China's logistics industry is very low. The growth contribution is mainly from the technology progress. However, the utilization effect of energy, labor, and capital does not improve. There is the phenomenon of high energy consumption, high input, low value output and high emission. There also is a technical gap between the Eastern Region and the Central and Western Region. The Eastern Region leads the technical frontier due to its higher technical progress. The Western Region is catching up to the frontier, the Central Region, however, is widening the gap with the frontier. The utilization efficiency of production factors and the technical diffusion effect from the Eastern Region to the Central and Western Region should be improved.