Effect of technological progress on carbon emissions: New evidence from a decomposition and spatiotemporal...

The continuously increasing carbon emissions have become a significant hurdle for global sustainable development. Technological progress is considered essential for controlling carbon emissions. However, previous literature has analyzed technological progress as a whole, largely ignoring its spatial spillovers. Therefore, our understanding of how technological progress influences carbon emissions is still limited. To fill this gap, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the effect of technological progress regarding carbon emissions by introducing a new framework that combines the slacks-based measure of the Malmquist-Luenberger index and the spatial dynamic model. Employing a Chinese provincial panel dataset for 2000-2016 as a case study, the conventional analysis indicates that both technological progress and its components have not played a significant role in decreasing carbon emissions. A further analysis using the spatial dynamic model suggests that the technological progress of neighbouring regions plays a significant role in reducing carbon emissions. Moreover, the effect of efficiency change is stronger than that of technical change, which provides new evidence on how technological progress influences carbon emissions.