IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v30y2008i3p1037-1053.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

China's changing energy intensity trend: A decomposition analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Ma, Chunbo
  • Stern, David I.

Abstract

China experienced a dramatic decline in energy intensity from the onset of economic reform in the late 1970s until 2000, but since then the rate of decline slowed and energy intensity actually increased in 2003. Most previous studies found that most of the decline was due to technological change, but disagreed on the role of structural change. To the best of our knowledge, no decomposition study has investigated the role of inter-fuel substitution in the decline in energy intensity or the causes of the rise in energy intensity since 2000. In this paper, we use logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) techniques to decompose changes in energy intensity in the period 1980-2003. We find that: (1) technological change is confirmed as the dominant contributor to the decline in energy intensity; (2) structural change at the industry and sector (sub-industry) level actually increased energy intensity over the period of 1980-2003, although the structural change at the industry level was very different in the 1980s and in the post-1990 period; (3) structural change involving shifts of production between sub-sectors, however, decreased overall energy intensity; (4) the increase in energy intensity since 2000 is explained by negative technological progress; (5) inter-fuel substitution is found to contribute little to the changes in energy intensity.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:30:y:2008:i:3:p:1037-1053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140-9883(07)00075-8
    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. Cleveland, Cutler J. & Kaufmann, Robert K. & Stern, David I., 2000. "Aggregation and the role of energy in the economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 301-317, February.
    2. Wang, Can & Chen, Jining & Zou, Ji, 2005. "Decomposition of energy-related CO2 emission in China: 1957–2000," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 73-83.
    3. 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.
    4. Ang, B.W. & Liu, F.L., 2001. "A new energy decomposition method: perfect in decomposition and consistent in aggregation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 537-548.
    5. Reitler, W. & Rudolph, M. & Schaefer, H., 1987. "Analysis of the factors influencing energy consumption in industry : A revised method," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 145-148, July.
    6. Ang, B. W., 1995. "Multilevel decomposition of industrial energy consumption," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 39-51, January.
    7. 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.
    8. Ruth A. Judson & Richard Schmalensee & Thomas M. Stoker, 1999. "Economic Development and the Structure of the Demand for Commercial Energy," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 29-57.
    9. Sato, Kazuo, 1976. "The Ideal Log-Change Index Number," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(2), pages 223-228, May.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Ang, B.W & Zhang, F.Q & Choi, Ki-Hong, 1998. "Factorizing changes in energy and environmental indicators through decomposition," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 489-495.
    13. Choi, Ki-Hong & Ang, B.W. & Ro, K.K., 1995. "Decomposition of the energy-intensity index with application for the Korean manufacturing industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 20(9), pages 835-842.
    14. Wu, Libo & Kaneko, Shinji & Matsuoka, Shunji, 2005. "Driving forces behind the stagnancy of China's energy-related CO2 emissions from 1996 to 1999: the relative importance of structural change, intensity change and scale change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 319-335, February.
    15. Ang, B. W., 2005. "The LMDI approach to decomposition analysis: a practical guide," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 867-871, May.
    16. Wu, Libo & Kaneko, Shinji & Matsuoka, Shunji, 2006. "Dynamics of energy-related CO2 emissions in China during 1980 to 2002: The relative importance of energy supply-side and demand-side effects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3549-3572, December.
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. 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)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy

    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:eneeco:v:30:y:2008:i:3:p:1037-1053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.