Carbon emissions, misallocation, and productivity in the cement industry: an empirical investigation

The cement industry is a typical high-carbon and overcapacity sector. In the context of global climate change, identifying productivity loss driven by resource misallocation is essential for controlling CO₂ emissions in the cement industry. We incorporate energy and CO₂ emissions into the Hsieh and Klenow (2009) model (HK model), reconstruct the analytical framework through which resource misallocation affects productivity, and empirically evaluate the resulting productivity loss in Hunan Province's cement industry from 2016 to 2019. The results show that eliminating resource misallocation increases industry productivity by 22.14%, with CO₂ price distortion accounting for 12% of the productivity loss. The study also shows that in the cement industry, economically developed regions have lower resource use efficiency than less developed regions; large enterprises have higher efficiency than small enterprises; older enterprises perform better than newer ones; and state-owned enterprises have higher efficiency than non-state-owned enterprises.