Liability accounting of natural resource assets from the perspective of input Slack—An analysis based on the energy resource in 282 prefecture-level cities in China

Natural resource assets-liabilities accounting is an essential theoretical and institutional innovation in constructing China's ecological civilization. As the primary account of the natural resources balance sheet, energy resources have typicality and representativeness. Unlike previous research focused on theoretical and practical research, this paper fully considers energy resources' exhaustibility and ecological value, and it organically combines the input slack based on the total factor productivity framework with the accounting of energy resources assets-liabilities. Employing the slack-based model with undesirable output and collecting samples including 282 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2019, this paper analyzes the energy resources assets-liabilities characteristics and evolution mechanism. The results show that the slack-based model with undesirable output effectively measures the excessive input of energy resources and the current energy resources assets-liabilities caused by backward utilization technology and configuration management. From 2006 to 2019, the average assets-liabilities of energy resources in China's prefecture-level cities show a growing trend and club convergence. Finally, the energy resources assets-liabilities in the initial, comprehensive, and post-industrialization economic development stages have significant differences and roughly conform to a U-shape. The conclusions obtained in this paper provide cases for the preparation and research of the natural resources assets-liabilities accounting and contribute to the rational utilization and scientific management of China's natural resources.