The impact of media reports on energy and environmental efficiency in China: evidence from modified dynamic DEA with undesirable outputs

Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation (2021) 19:51 Li et al. Cost Eff Resour Alloc https://doi.org/10.1186/s12962-021-00302-7 Open Access RESEARCH The impact of media reports on energy and environmental efficiency in China: evidence from modified dynamic DEA with undesirable outputs Ying Li1, Tai‑Yu Lin2, Yung‑ho Chiu3, Huaming Chen4* and Hongyi Cen1 Abstract Background: Rapid economic growth in China has resulted in a commensurate increase in energy consumption, which in turn has seen an increase in environmental pollution problems. Past research has tended to focus on energy and environmental efficiency analyses and has rarely examined the media influence on environmental protection efforts. Further, most studies have used static models and ignored the dynamic changes over time. Methods: To go some way to filling this research gap, this study developed a modified undesirable Dynamic DEA model that included air quality index (AQI) and CO2 indicators to explore the relationships between energy, the envi‑ ronment, and media report efficiencies in 31 Chinese cities from 2013 to 2016. Results: It was found that: (1) Chongqing, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shanghai had efficiencies of 1, but Lanzhou, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Xining and Yinchuan needed significant improvements; (2) Chongqing, Guangzhou, Kunming, Nanning and Shanghai had relatively high media efficiencies, but the other cities had low efficiencies and required improvements; (3) the CO2 emissions efficiencies in most cities were better than the air quality index efficiencies; and 4. the media reports in most cities were found to have a more positive impact on the C O2 emissions efficiency than on the AQI efficiency. Conclusions: Environmental awareness enhances civilian health and promotes economic growth. Therefore, as the news media should be responsible for promoting environmental protection, they need to increase their environmen‑ tal pollution coverage. It was found that the environmental pollution media report quality and especially air pollution reports needed improvements, and greater media coverage on environmental pollution and awareness was needed. Keywords: Dynamic DEA, Energy, Efficiency, AQI, CO2, Media report Background The energy required for sustained economic development causes serious carbon dioxide, PM2.5, and sulfur dioxide emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that in 2018, global carbon dioxide *Correspondence: 4 Sichuan University, Wangjiang Road No. 29, Chengdu 610064, People’s Republic of China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article emissions reached 33,143 million tonnes, a 1.7% increase over the previous year and the highest growth rate since 2013. Because China’s carbon emissions accounted for 27% of the global total, it has now been the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter for over a decade. PM2.5 emissions have attracted significant attention. At the 2015 climate change conference, China established three goals in accordance with the Paris Agreement, one of which was a 60–65% reduction in carbon dioxide © The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Li et al. Cost Eff Resour Alloc (2021) 19:51 emissions by 2030. In response to these goals, the Chinese government issued commensurate policies, such as the air pollution prevention and control action plan and the Environmental Protection Law, and is implementing national emissions reduction targets. As the media now has a wide range of access modes, it is followed by many people in China and could be used to encourage a national focus on reducing China’s environmental pollution problems. The association between energy and environmental efficiency has been widely studied [1, 7–10, 13, 17, 26, 27, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36–40]. Some studies have examined the impact of energy efficiency on the overall efficiency of a country or region [2, 5, 16–18, 34–36], and others have explored the relationships between the mass media, air pollution, and environmental issues or awareness [3, 11, 14, 24, 25], with some particularly focusing on the effects of news media reports that improve the awareness of environmental protection issues [8, 21, 23, 25, 28, 37]. While past studies have examined the relationships between energy and environmental efficiency and between media reports and environmental awareness raising, there have been few discussions looking at the relationships between energy consumption, the environment, and the media. Further, as most studies have tended to employ static energy efficiency and environmental pollution analysis methods, there has been little consideration of dynamic sustainable energy consumption and environmental protection development over time. Therefore, to explore the relationships between energy consumption, media, and environmental efficiencies, this study developed a modified undesirable Dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model that considered the dynamic effects of a carry-over and undesirable output. The air quality index (AQI) was included in the model analysis to more fully consider the relationships between energy consumption and environmental pollution. To avoid the shortcomings in static analysis and to assess the intertemporal influences, carry-over activities were also included in the inputs and outputs. This paper makes two main contributions. First, in addition to exploring the energy and environmental efficiencies, media release factors were included in the model to comprehensively explore the relationships between energy consumption, the environment, and media communications. Second, to overcome the static analysis problems in previous studies, a dynamic carryover effect was included in the modified undesirable Dynamic DEA model to examine the energy consumption, media, and environmental efficiencies in 31 Chinese cities from 2013 to 2016, with labor, energy consumption, and media reports as the inputs, GDP, C O2, and (...truncated)