Energy Economics 32 (2010) 194–201

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Energy Economics j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / e n e c o

Total factor carbon emission performance: A Malmquist index analysis
P. Zhou a,⁎, B.W. Ang b, J.Y. Han b a b

College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 29 Yudao Street, Nanjing 210016, China
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260, Singapore

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 11 May 2009
Received in revised form 21 September 2009
Accepted 3 October 2009
Available online 13 October 2009
JEL classification:
C61
D24
Q43
Q54

a b s t r a c t
This paper introduces a Malmquist CO2 emission performance index (MCPI) for measuring changes in total factor carbon emission performance over time. The MCPI is derived by solving several data envelopment analysis models. Bootstrapping MCPI is proposed to perform statistical inferences on the MCPI results. Using the index the emission performance of the world's 18 top CO2 emitters from 1997 to 2004 is studied. The results obtained show that the total factor carbon emission performance of the countries as a whole improved by 24% over the period and this was mainly driven by technological progress. The results of a cross-country regression analysis to investigate the determinants of the resulting MCPI are presented.
© 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Carbon dioxide emissions
Malmquist index
Data envelopment analysis
Total factor productivity
Bootstrap

1. Introduction
Global awareness on climate change has created much interest in analyzing the trends of world energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Policy makers have realized the importance of considering
CO2 emissions in formulating national economic and energy policies.
Internationally, it is apparent that the post-Kyoto climate policy will put more emphasis on the reduction of global CO2 emissions in order to mitigate climate change. These facts bring the need for understanding the patterns of CO2 emissions and monitoring the emission performance in different countries.
Various indicators have been developed and applied to monitor national CO2 emission performance trends. For instance, Mielnik and
Goldemberg (1999) propose the use of a “carbonization index” (the level of CO2 emissions per unit of energy consumption) to assess the evolution patterns of developing countries with regard to climate change. Ang (1999) shows that energy intensity (energy consumption per unit of GDP) is as useful as the carbonization index in the study of climate change. Sun (2005) highlights the usefulness of CO2 emission intensity in measuring decarbonization and assessing energy policies at the national level. Tol et al. (2009) show that both CO2 emission intensity and CO2 emissions per person can be considered as a function of per capita income.
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 25 84896261; fax: +86 25 84892751.
E-mail address: cemzp@nuaa.edu.cn (P. Zhou).
0140-9883/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2009.10.003 The indicators mentioned above may be interpreted as partial indicators since they can only reflect partial aspects of CO2 emission performance. Ramanathan (2002) points out that a more holistic view is to use the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique to combine all the relevant indicators such as energy consumption, economic activity and CO2 emissions into an overall index for performance comparisons.
DEA, a nonparametric frontier approach to efficiency evaluation, has been widely applied to assess the relative performance of various entities.1 Recently, the use of DEA has also been extended to model and analyze CO2 emission performance. For example, Zaim and Taskin