An empirical study of the efficiency of haze pollution governance in Chinese cities based on streaming data

Abstract The severe haze pollution brought about by China's extensive economic growth has attracted widespread attention from the academia and the international community. Based on the streaming data of the air quality index (AQI), PM2.5, and PM10 from 370 cities in China, this paper uses heatmaps to characterize the haze pollution governance of Chinese cities. Then, the meta-frontier efficiency, group frontier efficiency, and inefficiency under meta-frontier of the haze pollution governance of 101 key cities in China are measured using a directional distance function methodology. The sources of inefficiency of haze pollution governance are also analyzed. Although there have been improvements in AQI, PM2.5, and PM10 for most Chinese cities in recent years, the efficiency of haze pollution governance remains relatively low. In particular, the technology gap between the group frontiers and the meta-frontier of haze pollution governance of central China's cities is growing. Also, the inefficiencies of haze pollution governance mainly stem from the inefficient use and management of the resource inputs, rather than the technology gap.