An empirical study of provincial economic growth efficiency in China: Based on provincial standard coal consumption

Rapid economic growth is the main objective of policy makers to pursue, but it often accompanies with higher energy consumption. Traditionally, using per capita GDP to measure economic growth does not reflect the impact on the environment. In this paper, we use the GDP revised by standard coal to study the efficiency of provincial economic growth in China, and provide references for governor to change the model of economic growth in order to save energy and reduce emission to achieve the Kyoto Protocol. The results showed that, the efficiency of provincial economic growth increased dramatically during the last two decades and the provinces had a higher per capita GDP always accompanying higher energy consumption. It was worth noticing that some developed provinces have low energy efficiency, it means their economic growth is lack of efficient.