Spatiotemporal evolution of efficiency and driving factors of Chinese herbal medicine industry

Exploring the evolution process of the industrial efficiency of the Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is an important link to promote the development of characteristic ecological agriculture industry. The regional differences and spatiotemporal pattern of the CHM industry efficiency of China were calculated by using the data envelope analysis, the Malmquist index and the spatiotemporal and geographically weighted regression. The results showed that the spatial difference of the CHM industry efficiency was significant, and the average efficiency level was low. The provinces whose industry efficiency reached the effective level were mainly concentrated in northwest China. Technical efficiency has been the main reason that restricts the comprehensive industry efficiency. The impact of technology and labor factors on the CHM industry efficiency in the western China is higher than that in the eastern China, but the impact of economy and investment factors on the efficiency in the eastern China is higher than that in the western China. The education factor has little influence on the CHM industry efficiency, while the traffic factor has an increasing impact. It is suggested that strengthening investment in technology innovation, emphasizing and promoting the modernization and standardization of CHM processing are important means to improve the regional CHM industry efficiency.