IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i22p15039-d972049.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of Urban Mining on Energy Efficiency: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Hongcheng Shen

    (School of Business, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China)

  • Zihao Yang

    (School of Business, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China)

  • Yuxin Bao

    (School of Business, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China)

  • Xiaonuan Xia

    (School of Business, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China)

  • Dan Wang

    (Institute of Soil Ecology and Remediation, School of Life Science, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China)

Abstract

Achievement of carbon neutrality requires lowering energy consumption in China. However, only a few studies have focused on the impact of urban mining on the reduction in energy consumption, and the impact of urban mining on reducing energy consumption remains unclear. This study explored the impact of urban mining on energy efficiency by adopting the panel data of 281 prefecture-level cities in China between 2003 and 2016 using the difference-in-difference method, and tested the setting up of urban mining pilot bases on reducing urban energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) and channel mechanisms. The empirical findings show that urban mining pilot bases have significantly reduced energy consumption per unit of GDP by 3.67%. The instrumental variable method was used to overcome endogenous problems of the empirical results and related robustness tests. The verification results of the impact mechanism show that urban mining reduces the energy consumption per unit of GDP through three channels: by improving the degree of urban marketization, enhancing the harmony between the government and the market, and increasing the abundance of factor markets. The heterogeneity analysis shows that urban mining has a significant reduction effect on energy consumption per unit of GDP in all four regions of China; however, the energy-saving effect in the northeast is higher than that in the other regions. This study provides an empirical test and policy insights for the contribution of urban mining pilot bases in promoting China’s development of green industry and circular economy. It also offers a new path for cities in developing countries to promote energy conservation and achieve urban sustainability via urban mining.

Suggested Citation

  • Hongcheng Shen & Zihao Yang & Yuxin Bao & Xiaonuan Xia & Dan Wang, 2022. "Impact of Urban Mining on Energy Efficiency: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-16, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:22:p:15039-:d:972049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/22/15039/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/22/15039/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tanaka, Kenta & Managi, Shunsuke, 2021. "Industrial agglomeration effect for energy efficiency in Japanese production plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    2. Lv, Yulan & Chen, Wei & Cheng, Jianquan, 2020. "Effects of urbanization on energy efficiency in China: New evidence from short run and long run efficiency models," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    3. Pinglin He & Yulong Sun & Huayu Shen & Jianhui Jian & Zhongfu Yu, 2019. "Does Environmental Tax Affect Energy Efficiency? An Empirical Study of Energy Efficiency in OECD Countries Based on DEA and Logit Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-21, July.
    4. Hering, Laura & Poncet, Sandra, 2014. "Environmental policy and exports: Evidence from Chinese cities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 296-318.
    5. Tang, Liwei & He, Gang, 2021. "How to improve total factor energy efficiency? An empirical analysis of the Yangtze River economic belt of China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    6. Auffhammer, Maximilian & Carson, Richard T., 2008. "Forecasting the path of China's CO2 emissions using province-level information," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 229-247, May.
    7. Zhang, H. & Fan, L.W. & Zhou, P., 2020. "Handling heterogeneity in frontier modeling of city-level energy efficiency: The case of China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    8. Flavius Ioan Rovinaru & Mihaela Daciana Rovinaru & Adina Viorica Rus, 2019. "The Economic and Ecological Impacts of Dismantling End-of-Life Vehicles in Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-18, November.
    9. Hongcheng Shen & Yi Liu, 2022. "Can Circular Economy Legislation Promote Pollution Reduction? Evidence from Urban Mining Pilot Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-22, November.
    10. Kazançoglu, Yigit & Ada, Erhan & Ozturkoglu, Yucel & Ozbiltekin, Melisa, 2020. "Analysis of the barriers to urban mining for resource melioration in emerging economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    11. Lai, Wangyang, 2017. "Pesticide use and health outcomes: Evidence from agricultural water pollution in China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 93-120.
    12. Li, Fan & Sun, Bo & Zhang, Chenghui & Liu, Che, 2019. "A hybrid optimization-based scheduling strategy for combined cooling, heating, and power system with thermal energy storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    13. Zeng, Jimin & Liu, Lidong & Liang, Xiao & Chen, Shihe & Yuan, Jun, 2021. "Evaluating fuel consumption factor for energy conservation and carbon neutral on an industrial thermal power unit," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    14. Xi Chen & Zhigang Chen, 2021. "Can Green Finance Development Reduce Carbon Emissions? Empirical Evidence from 30 Chinese Provinces," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-18, November.
    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. Dong Feng & Jiayi Han & Han Jia & Xinyuan Chang & Jiaqi Guo & Pinghua Huang, 2023. "Regional Economic Growth and Environmental Protection in China: The Yellow River Basin Economic Zone as an Example," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-20, July.

    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. Yu, Chenyang & Tan, Yuanfang & Zhou, Yu & Zang, Chuanxiang & Tu, Chenglin, 2022. "Can functional urban specialization improve industrial energy efficiency? Empirical evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(PA).
    2. Zheng, Jiali & Mi, Zhifu & Coffman, D'Maris & Milcheva, Stanimira & Shan, Yuli & Guan, Dabo & Wang, Shouyang, 2019. "Regional development and carbon emissions in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 25-36.
    3. Zhou, P. & Zhang, H. & Zhang, L.P., 2022. "The drivers of energy intensity changes in Chinese cities: A production-theoretical decomposition analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    4. Li, Mengna & Pan, Xiongfeng & Yuan, Sai, 2022. "Do the national industrial relocation demonstration zones have higher regional energy efficiency?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(PA).
    5. Shao, Jun & Wang, Lianghu, 2023. "Can new-type urbanization improve the green total factor energy efficiency? Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PB).
    6. Bin Chen & Yuk-shing Cheng, 2017. "The Impacts of Environmental Regulation on Industrial Activities: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Chinese Prefectures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-19, April.
    7. Jing Wang & Jie Li, 2021. "Exploring the Impact of International Trade on Carbon Emissions: New Evidence from China’s 282 Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-12, August.
    8. Su, Zhifang & Guo, Qianqian & Lee, Hsiang-Tai, 2022. "Green finance policy and enterprise energy consumption intensity: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    9. Wang, Yongpei & Yan, Qing, 2023. "Is cleaner more efficient? Exploring nonlinear impacts of renewable energy deployment on regional total factor energy efficiency," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    10. Hongcheng Shen & Yi Liu, 2022. "Can Circular Economy Legislation Promote Pollution Reduction? Evidence from Urban Mining Pilot Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-22, November.
    11. Yonghan Jeon & Jongoh Nam, 2023. "Estimating Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving Potential in the Republic of Korea’s Offshore Fisheries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-17, October.
    12. Hongjian Yu & Yao Zhao & Guitao Qiao & Mahmood Ahmad, 2023. "Can Green Financial Reform Policies Promote Enterprise Development? Empirical Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-21, February.
    13. Cheng, Zhuo & Kai, Zhe & Zhu, Shouwenjun, 2023. "Does green finance regulation improve renewable energy utilization? Evidence from energy consumption efficiency," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 63-75.
    14. Yang Liu & Ruochan Xiong & Shigong Lv & Da Gao, 2022. "The Impact of Digital Finance on Green Total Factor Energy Efficiency: Evidence at China’s City Level," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-17, July.
    15. Zhou, Sheng & Xu, Zhiwei, 2022. "Energy efficiency assessment of RCEP member states: A three-stage slack based measurement DEA with undesirable outputs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    16. Fujii, Hidemichi & Managi, Shunsuke, 2013. "Which industry is greener? An empirical study of nine industries in OECD countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 381-388.
    17. Ke Liu & Zhenhong Qi & Li Tan & Caiyan Yang & Canwei Hu, 2023. "Mixed Use of Chemical Pesticides and Biopesticides among Rice–Crayfish Integrated System Farmers in China: A Multivariate Probit Approach," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, August.
    18. Qian, Jiaxin & Wu, Jiahui & Yao, Lei & Mahmut, Saniye & Zhang, Qiang, 2021. "Comprehensive performance evaluation of Wind-Solar-CCHP system based on emergy analysis and multi-objective decision method," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    19. Lesly Cassin, 2018. "The effects of migration and pollution externality on cognitive skills in Caribbean economies: a Theoretical analysis," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-30, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    20. Zhao, Xiaoli & Li, Shujie & Zhang, Sufang & Yang, Rui & Liu, Suwei, 2016. "The effectiveness of China's wind power policy: An empirical analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 269-279.

    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:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:22:p:15039-:d:972049. 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.