IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecosys/v34y2010i2p105-132.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

China's energy economy: A survey of the literature

Author

Listed:
  • Ma, Hengyun
  • Oxley, Les
  • Gibson, John

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on China's energy economy, focusing particularly on: (i) the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth; (ii) China's changing energy intensity; (iii) energy demand and energy-non-energy substitution; (iv) the emergence of energy markets in China; and (v) economic reforms in the energy industry. After reviewing the literature, the paper presents the main findings that some important issues remain unanswered, for example, what determines energy consumption behavior; the effects of substitution of and demand for energy; and technological change effects on energy intensity. Finally, the review suggests some topics worthy of future study.

Suggested Citation

  • Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2010. "China's energy economy: A survey of the literature," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 105-132, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:34:y:2010:i:2:p:105-132
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939-3625(10)00005-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ang, B. W., 2004. "Decomposition analysis for policymaking in energy:: which is the preferred method?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1131-1139, June.
    2. Yuan, Jia-Hai & Kang, Jian-Gang & Zhao, Chang-Hong & Hu, Zhao-Guang, 2008. "Energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from China at both aggregated and disaggregated levels," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 3077-3094, November.
    3. Fisher-Vanden, Karen & Jefferson, Gary H. & Liu, Hongmei & Tao, Quan, 2004. "What is driving China's decline in energy intensity?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 77-97, March.
    4. Shiu, Alice & Lam, Pun-Lee, 2004. "Electricity consumption and economic growth in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 47-54, January.
    5. Sinton, Jonathan E., 2001. "Accuracy and reliability of China's energy statistics," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 373-383.
    6. Fan, Ying & Liao, Hua & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2007. "Can market oriented economic reforms contribute to energy efficiency improvement? Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2287-2295, April.
    7. Birol, Fatih & Keppler, Jan Horst, 2000. "Prices, technology development and the rebound effect," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(6-7), pages 457-469, June.
    8. Chen, Sheng-Tung & Kuo, Hsiao-I & Chen, Chi-Chung, 2007. "The relationship between GDP and electricity consumption in 10 Asian countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2611-2621, April.
    9. Vega-Cervera, J.A. & Medina, J., 2000. "Energy as a productive input: The underlying technology for Portugal and Spain," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 757-775.
    10. Owen, A. D. & Neal, Penelope N., 1989. "China's potential as an energy exporter," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 485-500, October.
    11. Cherni, Judith A. & Kentish, Joanna, 2007. "Renewable energy policy and electricity market reforms in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 3616-3629, July.
    12. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John & Kim, Bonggeun, 2008. "China's energy economy: Technical change, factor demand and interfactor/interfuel substitution," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2167-2183, September.
    13. Lawrence J. Lau & Yingyi Qian & Gerard Roland, 2000. "Reform without Losers: An Interpretation of China's Dual-Track Approach to Transition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 120-143, February.
    14. Diewert, Erwin, 2007. "Index Numbers," Economics working papers diewert-07-01-03-08-17-23, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 31 Jan 2007.
    15. Jin-Ping Huang, 1993. "Electricity consumption and economic growth A case study of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 717-720, June.
    16. Welsch, Heinz & Ochsen, Carsten, 2005. "The determinants of aggregate energy use in West Germany: factor substitution, technological change, and trade," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 93-111, January.
    17. Poncet, Sandra, 2003. "Measuring Chinese domestic and international integration," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-21.
    18. Asafu-Adjaye, John, 2000. "The relationship between energy consumption, energy prices and economic growth: time series evidence from Asian developing countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 615-625, December.
    19. Yuan, Jiahai & Zhao, Changhong & Yu, Shunkun & Hu, Zhaoguang, 2007. "Electricity consumption and economic growth in China: Cointegration and co-feature analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1179-1191, November.
    20. Liao, Hua & Fan, Ying & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2007. "What induced China's energy intensity to fluctuate: 1997-2006?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 4640-4649, September.
    21. Crompton, Paul & Wu, Yanrui, 2005. "Energy consumption in China: past trends and future directions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 195-208, January.
    22. Frondel, Manuel, 2004. "Empirical assessment of energy-price policies: the case for cross-price elasticities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 989-1000, June.
    23. Ang, B. W., 2005. "The LMDI approach to decomposition analysis: a practical guide," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 867-871, May.
    24. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2008. "Energy consumption and economic growth in Asian economies: A more comprehensive analysis using panel data," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 50-65, January.
    25. Ma, Chunbo & Stern, David I., 2008. "China's changing energy intensity trend: A decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 1037-1053, May.
    26. Wang, Bing, 2007. "An imbalanced development of coal and electricity industries in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 4959-4968, October.
    27. Kemfert, Claudia & Welsch, Heinz, 2000. "Energy-Capital-Labor Substitution and the Economic Effects of CO2 Abatement: Evidence for Germany," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 641-660, November.
    28. Zhang, ZhongXiang, 2003. "Why did the energy intensity fall in China's industrial sector in the 1990s? The relative importance of structural change and intensity change," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 625-638, November.
    29. Sandra Poncet, 2005. "A Fragmented China: Measure and Determinants of Chinese Domestic Market Disintegration," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 409-430, August.
    30. Greening, Lorna A. & Davis, William B. & Schipper, Lee & Khrushch, Marta, 1997. "Comparison of six decomposition methods: application to aggregate energy intensity for manufacturing in 10 OECD countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 375-390, July.
    31. Hing Lin Chan & Shu Kam Lee, 1996. "Forecasting the Demand for Energy in China," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 19-30.
    32. Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2005. "Energy consumption and GDP in developing countries: A cointegrated panel analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 415-427, May.
    33. Berndt, Ernst R & Wood, David O, 1979. "Engineering and Econometric Interpretations of Energy-Capital Complementarity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 342-354, June.
    34. Rawski, Thomas G., 2001. "What is happening to China's GDP statistics?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 347-354.
    35. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2009. "Substitution possibilities and determinants of energy intensity for China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1793-1804, May.
    36. Christopoulos, Dimitris K., 2000. "The demand for energy in Greek manufacturing," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 569-586, October.
    37. Richard F. Garbaccio & Mun S. Ho & Dale W. Jorgenson, 1999. "Why Has the Energy-Output Ratio Fallen in China?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 63-91.
    38. Ma, Chunbo & He, Lining, 2008. "From state monopoly to renewable portfolio: Restructuring China's electric utility," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1697-1711, May.
    39. Zha, Donglan & Zhou, Dequn & Ding, Ning, 2009. "The contribution degree of sub-sectors to structure effect and intensity effects on industry energy intensity in China from 1993 to 2003," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 895-902, May.
    40. Chuanlong Tang & Sumner J. La Croix, 1993. "Energy Consumption and Economic Activity in China," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 21-36.
    41. C. Simon Fan & Xiangdong Wei, 2006. "The Law of One Price: Evidence from the Transitional Economy of China," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 682-697, November.
    42. Sun, J.W., 1998. "Accounting for energy use in China, 1980–94," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 23(10), pages 835-849.
    43. Wang, GuoHong & Wang, YunXia & Zhao, Tao, 2008. "Analysis of interactions among the barriers to energy saving in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1879-1889, June.
    44. Xu, Shaofeng & Chen, Wenying, 2006. "The reform of electricity power sector in the PR of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(16), pages 2455-2465, November.
    45. Berndt, Ernst R & Wood, David O, 1975. "Technology, Prices, and the Derived Demand for Energy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 57(3), pages 259-268, August.
    46. Sari, Ramazan & Soytas, Ugur, 2007. "The growth of income and energy consumption in six developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 889-898, February.
    47. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2007. "Energy consumption and GDP revisited: A panel analysis of developed and developing countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1206-1223, November.
    48. Zou, Gaolu & Chau, K.W., 2006. "Short- and long-run effects between oil consumption and economic growth in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3644-3655, December.
    49. Alwyn Young, 2000. "The Razor's Edge: Distortions and Incremental Reform in the People's Republic of China," NBER Working Papers 7828, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    50. Hang, Leiming & Tu, Meizeng, 2007. "The impacts of energy prices on energy intensity: Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2978-2988, May.
    51. ZY. Zhou & GH. Wan & LB. Chen, 2000. "Integration of rice markets: the case of southern China," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 18(1), pages 95-106, January.
    52. Liu, F. L. & Ang, B. W., 2003. "Eight methods for decomposing the aggregate energy-intensity of industry," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 76(1-3), pages 15-23, September.
    53. Cho, Won G. & Nam, Kiseok & Pagan, Jose A., 2004. "Economic growth and interfactor/interfuel substitution in Korea," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 31-50, January.
    54. Mahadevan, Renuka & Asafu-Adjaye, John, 2007. "Energy consumption, economic growth and prices: A reassessment using panel VECM for developed and developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2481-2490, April.
    55. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10972 is not listed on IDEAS
    56. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2009. "Gradual reforms and the emergence of energy market in China: Evidence from tests for convergence of energy prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4834-4850, November.
    57. Richard B. Howarth & Lee Schipper, 1991. "Manufacturing Energy Use in Eight OECD Countries: Trends through 1988," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 15-40.
    58. Linda Warell, 2006. "Market Integration in the International Coal Industry: A Cointegration Approach," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 99-118.
    59. Wu, Yanrui, 2003. "Deregulation and growth in China's energy sector: a review of recent development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(13), pages 1417-1425, October.
    60. Sinton, Jonathan E. & Levine, Mark D., 1994. "Changing energy intensity in Chinese industry : The relatively importance of structural shift and intensity change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 239-255, March.
    61. Gnansounou, Edgard & Dong, Jun, 2004. "Opportunity for inter-regional integration of electricity markets: the case of Shandong and Shanghai in East China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(15), pages 1737-1751, October.
    62. Alwyn Young, 2000. "The Razor's Edge: Distortions and Incremental Reform in the People's Republic of China," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1091-1135.
    63. Huang, Jin-ping, 1993. "Industry energy use and structural change : A case study of The People's Republic of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 131-136, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2009. "Gradual reforms and the emergence of energy market in China: Evidence from tests for convergence of energy prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4834-4850, November.
    2. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2009. "Substitution possibilities and determinants of energy intensity for China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1793-1804, May.
    3. Jin Zhang and David C. Broadstock, 2016. "The Causality between Energy Consumption and Economic Growth for China in a Time-varying Framework," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(China Spe).
    4. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John & Kim, Bonggeun, 2008. "China's energy economy: Technical change, factor demand and interfactor/interfuel substitution," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 2167-2183, September.
    5. Wu, Yanrui, 2012. "Energy intensity and its determinants in China's regional economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 703-711.
    6. Cattaneo, Cristina & Manera, Matteo & Scarpa, Elisa, 2011. "Industrial coal demand in China: A provincial analysis," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 12-35, January.
    7. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les, 2012. "The emergence and evolution of regional convergence clusters in China's energy markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 82-94.
    8. Zhao, Xiaoli & Ma, Chunbo & Hong, Dongyue, 2010. "Why did China's energy intensity increase during 1998-2006: Decomposition and policy analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1379-1388, March.
    9. Yang, Guangfei & Li, Wenli & Wang, Jianliang & Zhang, Dongqing, 2016. "A comparative study on the influential factors of China's provincial energy intensity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 74-85.
    10. Ozturk, Ilhan, 2010. "A literature survey on energy-growth nexus," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 340-349, January.
    11. Liao, Hua & Fan, Ying & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2007. "What induced China's energy intensity to fluctuate: 1997-2006?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 4640-4649, September.
    12. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les, 2010. "The integration of major fuel source markets in China: Evidence from panel cointegration tests," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1139-1146, September.
    13. Akkemik, K. Ali & Göksal, Koray & Li, Jia, 2012. "Energy consumption and income in Chinese provinces: Heterogeneous panel causality analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 445-454.
    14. Hengyun Ma & Les Oxley & John Gibson, 2009. "China’s Energy Situation and Its Implications in the New Millennium," Working Papers in Economics 09/01, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    15. Fang, Zheng & Chen, Yang, 2017. "Human capital and energy in economic growth – Evidence from Chinese provincial data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 340-358.
    16. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2009. "China's energy situation in the new millennium," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(8), pages 1781-1799, October.
    17. Wang, Wenchao & Mu, Hailin & Kang, Xudong & Song, Rongchen & Ning, Yadong, 2010. "Changes in industrial electricity consumption in china from 1998 to 2007," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3684-3690, July.
    18. Zhang, Wei & Yang, Shuyun, 2013. "The influence of energy consumption of China on its real GDP from aggregated and disaggregated viewpoints," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 76-81.
    19. Yuan, Jia-Hai & Kang, Jian-Gang & Zhao, Chang-Hong & Hu, Zhao-Guang, 2008. "Energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from China at both aggregated and disaggregated levels," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 3077-3094, November.
    20. Zha, DongLan & Zhou, DeQun & Ding, Ning, 2012. "The determinants of aggregated electricity intensity in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 150-156.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    China Energy Literature review;

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:ecosys:v:34:y:2010:i:2:p:105-132. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/osteide.html .

    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.