A Study on the Green Total Factor Productivity and Economic Growth of China Constrained by Carbon Emissions and Energy Consumption Analysis Based on an Expanded Solow Model
The traditional total factor productivity ignores the constrained problem of increasing carbon emissions as the undesired output. This paper estimates the green total factor productivity of China including the energy consumption and carbon emissions from 1978 to 2008, and develops an extended Solow model to find the contributing role and size of energy usage, carbon dioxide emissions and technological progress to economic growth. The results show that China's economic growth is driven by high energy consumption and investment, and pay a high price for abundant carbon emissions; the technological progress efficiency little contributes to the overall positive effect of economic growth; the negative impact of carbon dioxide emission is more significant as a proxy for the environmental costs of economic growth.