IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i23p15563-d982001.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Low-Carbon Pilots Affect Chinese Urban Energy Efficiency: An Explanation from Technological Progress

Author

Listed:
  • Jian Song

    (School of Economics, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing 211815, China)

  • Jing Wang

    (School of Economics, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing 211815, China)

  • Zhe Chen

    (School of Economics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China)

Abstract

This study uses the low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy as a quasi-natural experiment, combined with the panel data of 281 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2018, and the difference-in-differences model to investigate the specific impact and mechanism of the LCCP on regional energy efficiency. The study showed that LCCP policies can significantly improve regional energy efficiency. The heterogeneity test found that, for cities with larger scales, high pollutant emission intensities, and fewer financial constraints, the implementation of LCCP policies could effectively improve energy efficiency. Based on the mechanical test of the technological progress path, it was concluded that LCCP policies could effectively improve energy efficiency by promoting technological innovation and transformation of enterprises. In the field of technological innovation, implementing LCCP policies helps promote green technological innovation, as well as increasing bias. Furthermore, this study evaluates the emission reduction effects of LCCP policies. The results found that, although LCCP could reduce regional carbon emissions by improving energy efficiency, the impact of energy rebound dramatically reduced the emission reduction effects of LCCP. This study provides empirical evidence and policy enlightenment for China’s accelerating “carbon-peak” and “carbon-neutral” goals.

Suggested Citation

  • Jian Song & Jing Wang & Zhe Chen, 2022. "How Low-Carbon Pilots Affect Chinese Urban Energy Efficiency: An Explanation from Technological Progress," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15563-:d:982001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15563/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/15563/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wu, Xianhua & Deng, Huai & Li, Hua & Guo, Yiming, 2021. "Impact of Energy Structure Adjustment and Environmental Regulation on Air Pollution in China: Simulation and Measurement Research by the Dynamic General Equilibrium Model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    2. Paul Lanoie & Michel Patry & Richard Lajeunesse, 2008. "Environmental regulation and productivity: testing the porter hypothesis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 121-128, October.
    3. Stefan Ambec & Mark A. Cohen & Stewart Elgie & Paul Lanoie, 2013. "The Porter Hypothesis at 20: Can Environmental Regulation Enhance Innovation and Competitiveness?," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 7(1), pages 2-22, January.
    4. Tang, Maogang & Li, Xiuzhen & Zhang, Yun & Wu, Yingtao & Wu, Baijun, 2020. "From command-and-control to market-based environmental policies: Optimal transition timing and China’s heterogeneous environmental effectiveness," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-10.
    5. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    6. Rubashkina, Yana & Galeotti, Marzio & Verdolini, Elena, 2015. "Environmental regulation and competitiveness: Empirical evidence on the Porter Hypothesis from European manufacturing sectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 288-300.
    7. Louis S. Jacobson & Robert J. LaLonde & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1993. "Long-term earnings losses of high-seniority displaced workers," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 17(Nov), pages 2-20.
    8. Sorrell, Steve & Dimitropoulos, John, 2008. "The rebound effect: Microeconomic definitions, limitations and extensions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 636-649, April.
    9. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov, 2010. "Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1637-1667, October.
    10. Shao, Shuai & Huang, Tao & Yang, Lili, 2014. "Using latent variable approach to estimate China׳s economy-wide energy rebound effect over 1954–2010," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 235-248.
    11. Bi, Gong-Bing & Song, Wen & Zhou, P. & Liang, Liang, 2014. "Does environmental regulation affect energy efficiency in China's thermal power generation? Empirical evidence from a slacks-based DEA model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 537-546.
    12. Perino, Grischa & Requate, Till, 2012. "Does more stringent environmental regulation induce or reduce technology adoption? When the rate of technology adoption is inverted U-shaped," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 456-467.
    13. Ang, James B., 2009. "CO2 emissions, research and technology transfer in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2658-2665, August.
    14. Montmartin, Benjamin & Herrera, Marcos, 2015. "Internal and external effects of R&D subsidies and fiscal incentives: Empirical evidence using spatial dynamic panel models," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 1065-1079.
    15. Chen, Zhe & Song, Pei & Wang, Baolu, 2021. "Carbon emissions trading scheme, energy efficiency and rebound effect – Evidence from China's provincial data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    16. Curtis Carlson & Dallas Burtraw & Maureen Cropper & Karen L. Palmer, 2000. "Sulfur Dioxide Control by Electric Utilities: What Are the Gains from Trade?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1292-1326, December.
    17. Allen Blackman & Zhengyan Li & Antung A. Liu, 2018. "Efficacy of Command-and-Control and Market-Based Environmental Regulation in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 381-404, October.
    18. Chiara Franco & Giovanni Marin, 2017. "The Effect of Within-Sector, Upstream and Downstream Environmental Taxes on Innovation and Productivity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 66(2), pages 261-291, February.
    19. Raphael Calel & Antoine Dechezleprêtre, 2016. "Environmental Policy and Directed Technological Change: Evidence from the European Carbon Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 173-191, March.
    20. Mandal, Sabuj Kumar, 2010. "Do undesirable output and environmental regulation matter in energy efficiency analysis? Evidence from Indian Cement Industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 6076-6083, October.
    21. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2018. "Growth, Trade, and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(1), pages 37-83, January.
    22. Wang, Ying & Deng, Xiangzheng & Zhang, Hongwei & Liu, Yujie & Yue, Tianxiang & Liu, Gang, 2022. "Energy endowment, environmental regulation, and energy efficiency: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    23. Magat, Wesley A., 1978. "Pollution control and technological advance: A dynamic model of the firm," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 1-25, March.
    24. Guo, Ran & Yuan, Yijun, 2020. "Different types of environmental regulations and heterogeneous influence on energy efficiency in the industrial sector: Evidence from Chinese provincial data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    25. Okushima, Shinichiro & Tamura, Makoto, 2010. "What causes the change in energy demand in the economy?: The role of technological change," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 41-46, September.
    26. Zhang, Ning & Zhou, P. & Choi, Yongrok, 2013. "Energy efficiency, CO2 emission performance and technology gaps in fossil fuel electricity generation in Korea: A meta-frontier non-radial directional distance functionanalysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 653-662.
    27. Chen, Zhongfei & Zhang, Xiao & Chen, Fanglin, 2021. "Do carbon emission trading schemes stimulate green innovation in enterprises? Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    28. Gehrsitz, Markus, 2017. "The effect of low emission zones on air pollution and infant health," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 121-144.
    29. Pan, Xiongfeng & Ai, Bowei & Li, Changyu & Pan, Xianyou & Yan, Yaobo, 2019. "Dynamic relationship among environmental regulation, technological innovation and energy efficiency based on large scale provincial panel data in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 428-435.
    30. Tan, Sieting & Yang, Jin & Yan, Jinyue & Lee, Chewtin & Hashim, Haslenda & Chen, Bin, 2017. "A holistic low carbon city indicator framework for sustainable development," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P2), pages 1919-1930.
    31. Hendrik Wolff, 2014. "Keep Your Clunker in the Suburb: Low‐emission Zones and Adoption of Green Vehicles," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(578), pages 481-512, August.
    32. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Peng, Hua-Rong, 2017. "Exploring the direct rebound effect of residential electricity consumption: An empirical study in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 132-141.
    33. Shao, Shuai & Guo, Longfei & Yu, Mingliang & Yang, Lili & Guan, Dabo, 2019. "Does the rebound effect matter in energy import-dependent mega-cities? Evidence from Shanghai (China)," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C), pages 212-228.
    34. Shuai Shao & Zhigao Hu & Jianhua Cao & Lili Yang & Dabo Guan, 2020. "Environmental Regulation and Enterprise Innovation: A Review," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 1465-1478, March.
    35. Zhang, Ning & Choi, Yongrok, 2013. "Total-factor carbon emission performance of fossil fuel power plants in China: A metafrontier non-radial Malmquist index analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 549-559.
    36. Wolff, Hendrik, 2014. "Keep Your Clunker in the Suburb: Low Emission Zones and Adoption of Green Vehicles," IZA Discussion Papers 8180, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    37. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Noh, Dong-Woon & Weber, William, 2005. "Characteristics of a polluting technology: theory and practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 469-492, June.
    38. Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Pasurka, Carl A., 2007. "Environmental production functions and environmental directional distance functions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1055-1066.
    39. Herrerias, M.J. & Cuadros, A. & Luo, D., 2016. "Foreign versus indigenous innovation and energy intensity: Further research across Chinese regions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1374-1384.
    40. Yu, Yantuan & Zhang, Ning, 2021. "Low-carbon city pilot and carbon emission efficiency: Quasi-experimental evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    41. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Wang, H., 2012. "Energy and CO2 emission performance in electricity generation: A non-radial directional distance function approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 221(3), pages 625-635.
    42. Chambers, Robert G. & Chung, Yangho & Fare, Rolf, 1996. "Benefit and Distance Functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 407-419, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhaoxian Su & Yang Yang & Yun Wang & Pan Zhang & Xin Luo, 2023. "Study on Spatiotemporal Evolution Features and Affecting Factors of Collaborative Governance of Pollution Reduction and Carbon Abatement in Urban Agglomerations of the Yellow River Basin," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Hua Shang & Hailei Yin, 2023. "Dynamic simulation research on urban green transformation under the target of carbon emission reduction: the example of Shanghai," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Yang Yang & Simo Li & Zhaoxian Su & Hao Fu & Wenbin Wang & Yun Wang, 2023. "Research on the Ecological Innovation Efficiency of the Zhongyuan Urban Agglomeration: Measurement, Evaluation and Optimization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-24, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Zhe & Song, Pei & Wang, Baolu, 2021. "Carbon emissions trading scheme, energy efficiency and rebound effect – Evidence from China's provincial data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Zhang, Ning & Zhao, Yu & Wang, Na, 2022. "Is China's energy policy effective for power plants? Evidence from the 12th Five-Year Plan energy saving targets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. LU Guanyu & TANAKA Kenta & ARIMURA Toshi H., 2023. "The Impacts of the Tokyo and Saitama ETSs on the Energy Efficiency Performance of Manufacturing Facilities," Discussion papers 23007, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Weijia Zhuo, 2023. "Environmental regulation and corporate sustainability: Evidence from green innovation," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(4), pages 1723-1737, July.
    5. Jian Song & Yijing Wang & Jing Wang, 2022. "The Impact of SO 2 Emissions Trading Scheme on Firm’s Environmental Performance: A Channel from Robot Application," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1, December.
    6. Liu, Duan & Yu, Nizhou & Wan, Hong, 2022. "Does water rights trading affect corporate investment? The role of resource allocation and risk mitigation channels," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Zhang, Ning & Kong, Fanbin & Choi, Yongrok & Zhou, P., 2014. "The effect of size-control policy on unified energy and carbon efficiency for Chinese fossil fuel power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 193-200.
    8. Lyu, Chaofeng & Xie, Zhe & Li, Zhi, 2022. "Market supervision, innovation offsets and energy efficiency: Evidence from environmental pollution liability insurance in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    9. Kounetas, Konstantinos & Stergiou, Eirini, 2019. "Technology heterogeneity in European industries' energy efficiency performance. The role of climate, greenhouse gases, path dependence and energy mix," MPRA Paper 92314, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    11. Guorong Chen & Changyan Liu, 2023. "Can Low–Carbon City Development Stimulate Population Growth? Insights from China’s Low–Carbon Pilot Program," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-22, October.
    12. Lu, Yunguo & Zhang, Lin, 2022. "National mitigation policy and the competitiveness of Chinese firms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    13. Hongfeng Zhang & Lu Huang & Yan Zhu & Hongyun Si & Xu He, 2021. "Does Low-Carbon City Construction Improve Total Factor Productivity? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-21, November.
    14. Kounetas, Konstantinos & Zervopoulos, Panagiotis D., 2019. "A cross-country evaluation of environmental performance: Is there a convergence-divergence pattern in technology gaps?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(3), pages 1136-1148.
    15. Lin, Boqiang & Sai, Rockson, 2021. "A multi factor Malmquist CO2emission performance indices: Evidence from Sub Saharan African public thermal power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    16. Li, Aijun & Zhang, Aizhen & Huang, Huijie & Yao, Xin, 2018. "Measuring unified efficiency of fossil fuel power plants across provinces in China: An analysis based on non-radial directional distance functions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 549-561.
    17. Zhang, Dan & Zheng, Mingbo & Feng, Gen-Fu & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2022. "Does an environmental policy bring to green innovation in renewable energy?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 1113-1124.
    18. Liu, Xiaoguang & Ji, Qiang & Yu, Jian, 2021. "Sustainable development goals and firm carbon emissions: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    19. Xu, Aiting & Zhu, Yuhan & Wang, Wenpu, 2023. "Micro green technology innovation effects of green finance pilot policy—From the perspectives of action points and green value," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    20. Kai Hu & Dandan Li & Daqian Shi & Wenli Xu, 2023. "Environmental regulation and energy efficiency: evidence from daily penalty policy in China," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 1-29, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:15563-:d:982001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.