The impact of urban land misallocation on inclusive green growth efficiency: evidence from China

Abstract

Inclusive green growth (IGG), as a new way to attain sustainable development, aims to achieve comprehensive and coordinated economic, social, and environmental development. How to define IGG and explore its driving factors is key to realizing IGG. This study takes China as an example, using panel data from 30 provinces in Mainland China from 2009 to 2018 for research. The epsilon-based measure (EBM) model and Global Malmquist–Luenberger (GML) index are used to evaluate China’s IGG, and a spatial panel regression model of the impact of urban land resource misallocation on IGG is established. The research found that (1) China’s IGG level from 2009 to 2018 displayed an upward trend, and combined with exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA), it was found that IGG has an obvious spatial correlation; (2) the regression model shows that the misallocation of land resources hinders the improvement of IGG in China; and (3) the decomposition of spatial spillover effects demonstrates that the misallocation of land resources has negative externalities, which will also have adverse effects on neighboring areas.

The dynamic coupling nexus among inclusive green growth: a case study in Anhui province, China

“…Therefore, the coordinated development of the three subsystems, namely, inclusive, green, and growth, is a significant prerequisite for achieving the goals of IGG. This idea not only guides countries to explore a new path of sustainable development, especially developing countries that need to solve the problem of imbalanced development, but also attracts wide attention from academia and local governments (Ojha et al 2020 ; Sun et al 2020 ; He and Du 2021 ; Zhang et al 2022 ). It is urgent and necessary to improve the coordinated development of the IGG subsystems.…”

“…China is now at a crucial point in its developmental history. Its economy has accomplished remarkable achievements at the expense of enormous social and environmental costs (Sun et al 2020 ; He and Du 2021 ). On the one hand, the extensive development pattern has resulted in natural resource depletion and ecological damage (Gu et al 2021b ); on the other hand, the rapid economic growth has also brought about social problems, such as education inequity, insufficient housing security, disproportionate urbanization, poor food safety, leading to a widening income gap and inequitable sharing of the prosperity (Liu et al 2021 ; Wu and Zhou 2021 ).…”

“…However, the following three aspects of IGG should be further studied. First, in terms of evaluation content , existing research primarily focuses on exploring the overall level (Zhu and Ye 2018 ; Chen et al 2020a ; Liu et al 2021 ; He and Du 2021 ), or each single-dimensional level, of IGG (Li et al 2021 ) and the factors that affect IGG. Early literature has achieved rich studies on external factors affecting IGG from the perspective of foreign direct investment (Zhu and Ye 2018 ), carbon tax (Ojha et al 2020 ), land resource misallocation (He and Du 2021 ), economic policy uncertainty (Gu et al 2021b ), and fiscal expenditure (Wu and Zhou 2021 ).…”

“…First, in terms of evaluation content , existing research primarily focuses on exploring the overall level (Zhu and Ye 2018 ; Chen et al 2020a ; Liu et al 2021 ; He and Du 2021 ), or each single-dimensional level, of IGG (Li et al 2021 ) and the factors that affect IGG. Early literature has achieved rich studies on external factors affecting IGG from the perspective of foreign direct investment (Zhu and Ye 2018 ), carbon tax (Ojha et al 2020 ), land resource misallocation (He and Du 2021 ), economic policy uncertainty (Gu et al 2021b ), and fiscal expenditure (Wu and Zhou 2021 ). However, research regarding the internal coupling nexus and interactive effects among the inclusive, green, and growth subsystems, as well as an analysis on the prediction and obstacles of its evolution has largely been neglected.…”

“…Finally, in terms of evaluation method, existing studies mainly use a single evaluation method to explore IGG (Zhu and Ye 2018 ; He and Du 2021 ; Zhang et al 2022 ). However, given the complex characteristics of the IGG system, it is challenging to discuss by applying a single method.…”