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Abstract In recent years, urban energy efficiency has received much attention from researchers. However, ignorance of the competitive relationships among regions results in inaccurate energy efficiency. Game cross-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA), which can account for the competitive relationships, is a reliable method to measure energy efficiency. First, this paper applies game cross-efficiency DEA to analyze the urban total factor energy efficiency (UTFEE) of 26 Chinese prefectural-level cities from 2005 to 2015 under environmental constraints. Then, a comparative analysis and a concrete analysis are conducted based on the urban energy efficiency. Finally, a Tobit model is used to examine the effects of 10 potential influence factors. The measurement results show that the urban energy efficiency considering the competitive relationship is lower than the traditionally calculated efficiency. Additionally, the urban energy efficiency did not improve during the research period. Furthermore, regression analysis suggests that economic development and city scale can promote urban energy efficiency, while government expenditure, industrial structures, energy prices, foreign investments, research investments and production endowment have negative impacts on urban energy efficiency. According to our results, some implications of theory and practice are discussed for researchers and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental impact of materials and energy is an important concern when cities and regions produce goods and services. To examine this requires an evaluation tool which can deal with the complex system of resources, energy inputs, products and wastes involved. This paper evaluates the urban material and energy flow efficiencies of 31 cities in China using a combination of the Data Envelopment Analysis model and Principal Component Analysis method. The results show that the urban flow system is composed of several input and output principal components, including energy, materials, urban capital investment, overall output, wastes, and others. In 2010, 16 cities were efficient as judged by the material and energy inputs and outputs. The remaining 15 cities were not efficient, primarily due to product shortfalls and waste excesses. Since 2000, half of the analyzed cities experienced a decline in the urban flow efficiencies, while only six cities showed a positive trend. The reasons include excess inputs of coal, coke, electricity, cement, investment, as well as output shortfalls in terms of overall output, wastes, services, agriculture and transport. We conclude that key priorities for improving urban systems with material and energy flow inefficiency are the use of urban renewable supplies, focus on sustainable endogenous development model, and improvement management of waste output, in order to increase efficiency and sustain economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]