As a kind of renewable resources, the effective utilization of marine resources has a significant influence on the sustainable development of economy. This paper employed the global Malmquist index model to measure the total factor productivity (TFP) and its decomposition index of marine science and technology (MST) in China's coastal areas from 2006 to 2016. The empirical results indicated that the overall level of TFP of MST is low with a trend of volatility. By analyzing the decomposition index, it was obvious that the increase of TFP of MST mainly depended on the improvement of technical progress and scale efficiency, and the pure technological efficiency did not have significant effect on it. Moreover, with the unceasing evolution of the spatial pattern of China's TFP of MST, the development of MST innovation industry was unbalanced. It should be noted that the TFP of MST for each region exists a distinct difference, such as Hebei; Hainan have higher TFP of MST, whereas Shandong, Tianjin, and Beijing have relatively low TFP. Thus, it is crucial to strengthen the construction of MST innovation system.

Keywords: China; Coastal areas; Decomposition index; MST innovation; TFP.

© 2020. Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.