Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 980: The Synergy in the Economic Production System: An Empirical Study with Chinese Industry (Sustainability)

Due to the difference in pollutants discharged, along with heterogeneous abatement technology, the structural and model design of the economic production system needs to consider these differences. This study first proposes a network slacks-based model (SBM) to address the inefficiency of the production system after considering pollutant abatement technology heterogeneity for different kinds of pollutant. Then, we employ the model to study the inefficiency of the Chinese industrial production system, analyzing the inefficiency in the stages of economic production and pollutant treatment. Furthermore, the regional distribution of inefficiencies concerning SO2 (NOx) generation (emission) are discussed and compared. The results show that only the joint reduction of NOx in two sub-stages simultaneously is feasible, and the synergistic pollutant reductions seems limited.