ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
This article is part of the Research TopicA Strategic Nexus for Enhancing System Resilience: Advancing Energy Efficiency, Reducing Carbon Emissions, Managing Water Resources, and Controlling Air Pollution in the Industrial SectorView all 10 articles
The U-shaped Relationship Between Environmental Regulation Intensity and Carbon Emission Efficiency: Evidence from China's Provincial Panel Data
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai Maritime University School of Economics and Management, Shanghai, China
- 2School of Government, Peking University, Beijing, China
- 3Guangxi University School of Public Policy and Management, Nanning, China
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Under the global imperative for energy conservation and emission reduction, a critical yet underexplored question is how environmental regulation (ER) specifically affects carbon emission efficiency (CEE). In this paper, the super-slake-based measure model with undesirable outputs measures the CEE of 30 Chinese provinces from 2010 to 2022. Based on the results, the Tobit model is used to study the impact of ER on CEE empirically. The results show that (1) China's CEE is low, and the eastern region has the highest CEE, followed by the central and western regions, and the lowest is the northeastern region. (2) There was a U-shaped curve relationship between ER and CEE, namely, the impacts of ER on CEE are first inhibiting and then promoting; Currently, ER is having a negative effect on CEE, and the inflection point has yet to emerge. (3) Industrial structure, technical progress level, and opening up level all have positive influences on CEE. Conversely, urbanisation appears to impact CEE negatively. This research provides a reference for improving the CEEs of China and other developing countries. Policy implications include the need to strengthen and optimise the regulations to promote the high-quality development of the Chinese economy. The results offer a reference for policymakers.
Keywords: environmental regulation, Carbon emission efficiency, Impact mechanism, Super-SBM model with undesirable outputs, tobit model
Received: 31 May 2025; Accepted: 03 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fu, Yao, Zhang, Li, Han and Huang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wentao Yao
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