Low-carbon sustainable development of China's manufacturing industries based on development model change

Whether or not development model change in China's manufacturing industry (MI) can improve its low-carbon sustainable development (LCSD) to reach the quality objectives of industrial growth and carbon emissions reduction has yet to be investigated in the literature. This study investigates the different effects of returns to damage (RTD) under natural disposability (ND) and damages to return (DTR) under managerial disposability (MD) and determines a development model for LCSD performance (LCSDP) for the first time. This study uses a non-oriented and non-radial DDF (NNDDF) method to estimate the LCSDP of China's MI under different types of disposabilities. Moreover, this study utilizes dual formulation based on the NNDDF method to evaluate degree of RTD (DgRTD) and degree of DTR (DgDTR) and investigates the impacts of DgRTD and DgDTR on the LCSDP of the MI through an empirical method. The main conclusions are as follows. First, the overall LCSDP of China's MI under MD is better than that under ND during the surveyed period, which shows that the development model has an obvious impact on the LCSDP of China's MI. Second, China's MI has been experiencing a downward trend in the DgRTD of undesirable congestion (UC) and an improvement in the DgDTR of desirable congestion. Third, the DgRTD of UC has a positive effect on LCSDP under ND， but an important negative effect on LCSDP under MD.