Abstract
Introduction Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP) serves as a key indicator for assessing an industry's green development performance. Methods Based on panel data from nine coastal provinces in China from 2013 to 2023, this study constructs an evaluation indicator system for the Green Total Factor Productivity of China’s mariculture industry, conducts measurements, analyzes its temporal evolution characteristics, reveals its regional disparities, and assesses its dynamic evolutionary trends. Results (1) From 2013 to 2023, the average GTFP of China’s coastal mariculture industry was 0.93, indicating room for further improvement in the level of green development. After 2020, the GTFP began to show a sustained increase, suggesting initial signs of effectiveness in the green transition of the mariculture sector. The growth of GTFP was jointly driven by both green technical change and green technical efficiency change; however, the contribution of technical change exceeded that of efficiency change gains. (2) There are significant provincial disparities in the GTFP of the mariculture industry. The average GTFP values of Liaoning, Hainan, Guangxi, Guangdong, and Shandong exceeded 1. The averages for Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu ranged between 0.8 and 1.0, while Hebei recorded the lowest average of 0.6. Inter-regional differences were identified as the primary source of the overall disparity. (3) In the short term, provinces with low GTFP levels face challenges in overcoming their backward status, while provinces with high levels can easily maintain their leading positions, indicating a phenomenon of polarization. In the long run, the probability of provinces with low and medium GTFP levels transitioning to higher levels increases significantly. The likelihood of a province moving upward is positively correlated with the GTFP levels of its neighboring provinces. The driving effect from adjacent medium-level provinces is the strongest. Proximity to high-level provinces may produce a “double-edged sword” effect. Discussion Based on these findings, this paper proposes recommendations to increase investment in core technology research and development, promote regional coordinated development, and implement differentiated performance evaluations.