Static and dynamic cultivated land use efficiency in China: A minimum distance to strong efficient frontier approach

Abstract Cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE) not only affects sustainable economic growth but is also closely related to the physical and mental health of citizens. In this paper, we employed the minimum distance to strong efficient frontier with undesirable outputs (MinDS-U) model and Malmquist productivity index based on the MinDS-U model (MinDS-U-M) to conduct static and dynamic multi-perspective analyses of the CLUE in 30 provinces in China from 1997 to 2017 under carbon emission constraints. The study results showed that: (1) There were significant differences in the cultivated land use technical efficiency (CLUTE) between eastern, central, western, and northeastern China. Compared with central China, eastern, western, and northeastern China have higher CLUTE and are closer to the production frontier. (2) There are varying degrees of non-coordination between carbon emission reduction and economic growth during cultivated land use in eastern, central, western, and northeastern China, and the problem of non-environmentally friendly technology is particularly prominent in central China. (3) The inter-provincial cultivated land use total factor productivity (CLUTFP) growth mode was unsatisfactory, and only Shaanxi and Chongqing followed the dual-high growth model.