The impact of national value chains on the total factor carbon emission efficiency of China

With the continuous development of economic globalization, China is faced with increasing opportunities and challenges in participating in the global value chain. Investigating the impact of national value chains embedment (NVCs) on regional total factor carbon emission efficiency (RTFCEEs) contributes to a comprehensive understanding of China's carbon emissions in the development of NVCs. Previous studies have not focused on the impact of NVCs on RTFCEEs, this paper focuses on this issue and innovatively portrays the relationship with the help of a theoretical model. This study can help guide China and other developing countries to formulate carbon emission reduction policies from the perspective of cultivating NVCs and optimizing carbon emissions at the regional level. Based on the non-competitive input-output tables of Chinese provinces in 2012, 2015, and 2017, this paper measures provinces' embeddedness in NVC, and uses MaxDEA software to construct a data envelopment analysis model to calculate the RTFCEE of respective regions. The results indicate that NVCs have a significant nonlinear impact on RTFCEEs, driven by the scale and technique effects, validating this study's research hypothesis. The heterogeneity analysis of this paper finds that the impact of NVCs on RTFCEEs is more pronounced in the central and western regions, in regions with higher embedment, and in groups with lower per capita wealth. Moreover, the higher the position of NVCs, the stronger its impact on RTFCEEs. Therefore, China should actively leverage the advantages of NVCs to improve the RTFCEEs at the current stage.