IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v17y2025i9p4241-d1651039.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluating the Role of Next-Generation Productive Forces in Mitigating Carbon Lock-In: Evidence from Regional Disparities in China

Author

Listed:
  • Chenchen Song

    (Business School, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing 100192, China)

  • Zhiling Guo

    (Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China)

  • Xiaoyue Ma

    (School of Economics, Northwest University of Political Science and Law, Xi’an 710122, China)

  • Jijiang He

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

  • Zhengguang Liu

    (Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK)

Abstract

Carbon lock-in (CLI), defined as the structural persistence of fossil-fuel-based systems, poses a significant barrier to decarbonization. As CLI continues to impede China’s progress toward carbon neutrality, understanding the role of next-generation productive forces (NGPFs) in breaking this path dependence has become increasingly urgent; however, it remains underexplored in empirical research. This study examines the impact of NGPFs on CLI using provincial panel data from 2012 to 2022. Composite indices for NGPFs and CLI are constructed using the entropy weight method. The analysis applies instrumental variable estimation (IV-GMM) to address potential endogeneity, feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) to account for heteroskedasticity, and spatial Durbin models (SDMs) to capture spatial dependence. In addition, quantile regression is used to explore distributional effects, and subsample regressions are conducted to assess regional heterogeneity. The results show that (1) a 1% increase in NGPFs leads to approximately a 0.9643% reduction in CLI, effectively mitigating CLI. (2) NGPF levels are high in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong, while being constrained in Heilongjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai. Provinces like Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong are rapidly catching up. (3) Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Shandong struggle with high comprehensive CLI from carbon-heavy industries; in contrast, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hainan show low CLI. (4) As CLI levels increase (90th percentile), the effectiveness of NGPFs in reducing CLI gradually diminishes (−0.2724). (5) The impact of NGPFs on CLI is not significant in the Eastern region, while in the Central and Western regions, the effects are −1.1365 and −1.0137, respectively. This study offers vital insights for shaping policies that promote sustainable growth and mitigate CLI in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Chenchen Song & Zhiling Guo & Xiaoyue Ma & Jijiang He & Zhengguang Liu, 2025. "Evaluating the Role of Next-Generation Productive Forces in Mitigating Carbon Lock-In: Evidence from Regional Disparities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-29, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:9:p:4241-:d:1651039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/9/4241/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/9/4241/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anna Biniek-Poskart & Marcin Sajdak & Magdalena Skrzyniarz & Jakub Rzącki & Andrzej Skibiński & Monika Zajemska, 2023. "The Application of Lignocellulosic Biomass Waste in the Iron and Steel Industry in the Context of Challenges Related to the Energy Crisis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-25, September.
    2. Nathan Nunn & Diego Puga, 2012. "Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 20-36, February.
    3. Jiyang Wu & Qiang Li & Qian Chen & Guangqiang Peng & Jinyu Wang & Qiang Fu & Bo Yang, 2022. "Evaluation, Analysis and Diagnosis for HVDC Transmission System Faults via Knowledge Graph under New Energy Systems Construction: A Critical Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-20, October.
    4. Thomas Hoppe & Michiel Miedema, 2020. "A Governance Approach to Regional Energy Transition: Meaning, Conceptualization and Practice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-28, January.
    5. Shengda Zhang & Shuang Lin & Chaofeng Wang & Pomi Shahbaz, 2024. "Towards energy sustainability: Exploring the nexus between global value chain participation and energy security in developing and developed countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(1), pages 1-28, January.
    6. Philip E. Agbonifo, 2021. "Renewable Energy Development: Opportunities and Barriers within the Context of Global Energy Politics," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(2), pages 141-148.
    7. Guo, Qingbin & Wang, Yong & Dong, Xiaobin, 2022. "Effects of smart city construction on energy saving and CO2 emission reduction: Evidence from China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    8. Wan, Qunchao & Chen, Jin & Yao, Zhu & Yuan, Ling, 2022. "Preferential tax policy and R&D personnel flow for technological innovation efficiency of China's high-tech industry in an emerging economy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    9. Wang, Bo & Wang, Jianda & Dong, Kangyin & Dong, Xiucheng, 2023. "Is the digital economy conducive to the development of renewable energy in Asia?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    10. Pavel Tcvetkov, 2021. "Climate Policy Imbalance in the Energy Sector: Time to Focus on the Value of CO 2 Utilization," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-22, January.
    11. Raffaele Cioffi & Marta Travaglioni & Giuseppina Piscitelli & Antonella Petrillo & Fabio De Felice, 2020. "Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Applications in Smart Production: Progress, Trends, and Directions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-26, January.
    12. Guri Bang & Knut Einar Rosendahl & Christoph Böhringer, 2022. "Balancing cost and justice concerns in the energy transition: comparing coal phase-out policies in Germany and the UK," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(8), pages 1000-1015, September.
    13. Adele Parmentola & Marco Ferretti & Eva Panetti, 2021. "Exploring the university-industry cooperation in a low innovative region. What differences between low tech and high tech industries?," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 1469-1496, September.
    14. Alaa Salma & Lydia Fryda & Hayet Djelal, 2024. "Biochar: A Key Player in Carbon Credits and Climate Mitigation," Resources, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-13, February.
    15. Maxwell Kongkuah & Hongxing Yao & Veli Yilanci, 2022. "The relationship between energy consumption, economic growth, and CO2 emissions in China: the role of urbanisation and international trade," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 4684-4708, April.
    16. Djula Borozan & Burak Pirgaip, 2024. "Climate policy uncertainty and firm‐level carbon dioxide emissions: Assessing the impact in the U.S. market," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(6), pages 5920-5938, September.
    17. Zhao, Congyu & Wang, Jianda & Dong, Kangyin & Wang, Kun, 2023. "How does renewable energy encourage carbon unlocking? A global case for decarbonization," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    18. Potrč, Sanja & Čuček, Lidija & Martin, Mariano & Kravanja, Zdravko, 2021. "Sustainable renewable energy supply networks optimization – The gradual transition to a renewable energy system within the European Union by 2050," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    19. E. M. B. M. Karunathilake & Anh Tuan Le & Seong Heo & Yong Suk Chung & Sheikh Mansoor, 2023. "The Path to Smart Farming: Innovations and Opportunities in Precision Agriculture," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-26, August.
    20. Michael Davidson, Valerie J. Karplus, Da Zhang, Xiliang Zhang, 2021. "Policies and Institutions to Support Carbon Neutrality in China by 2060," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    21. Kedong Yin & Yuqing Miao & Chong Huang, 2024. "Environmental regulation, technological innovation, and industrial structure upgrading," Energy & Environment, , vol. 35(1), pages 207-227, February.
    22. Tang, Chang & Xu, Yuanyuan & Hao, Yu & Wu, Haitao & Xue, Yan, 2021. "What is the role of telecommunications infrastructure construction in green technology innovation? A firm-level analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    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. Zheng, Mingbo & Zhang, Xinyu, 2025. "Digitalization and renewable energy development: Analysis based on cross-country panel data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 319(C).
    2. Ding, Qian & Huang, Jianbai & Chen, Jinyu & Tao, Dali, 2023. "Internet development and renewable energy technological innovation: Does institutional quality matter?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    3. Di Wang & Wei Dou & Jiajun Ning, 2025. "Can new infrastructure construction facilitate low-carbon energy transition? A quasi-natural experiment based on China’s smart city pilots," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 1-35, April.
    4. Liao, Kaicheng & Liu, Juan, 2024. "Digital infrastructure empowerment and urban carbon emissions: Evidence from China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(6).
    5. Feng, Yanchao & Liu, Gaoxiang & Meng, Xiangxu & Jiang, Kai & Huang, Rongbing & Zhang, Ci & Shi, Jiaxin & Pan, Yuxi, 2024. "How does digital government affect carbon intensity at the global level? New perspective of resource allocation optimization," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Dunping Huang & Fan Yang & Donghui Wang & Kai Yin & Bin Gong & Lianbiao Cui, 2024. "Exploring the Impacts of the Digital Economy on Carbon Emissions: Lessons from 268 Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-20, September.
    7. Yan, Zheming & Sun, Zao & Shi, Rui & Zhao, Minjuan, 2023. "Smart city and green development: Empirical evidence from the perspective of green technological innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    8. Yi, Jiahui & Dai, Sheng & Li, Lin & Cheng, Jinhua, 2024. "How does digital economy development affect renewable energy innovation?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    9. Xiaohong Liu, 2023. "Impacts of Environmental Pollution and Digital Economy on the New Energy Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-15, June.
    10. Che, Xiao-Jing & Zhou, P. & Wang, M., 2022. "The policy effect on photovoltaic technology innovation with regional heterogeneity in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    11. Alexander Klein & Karl Gunnar Persson & Paul Sharp, 2023. "Populism and the first wave of globalization: Evidence from the 1892 US presidential election," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 163-202.
    12. Hu, Hui & Qi, Shaozhou & Chen, Yuanzhi, 2023. "Using green technology for a better tomorrow: How enterprises and government utilize the carbon trading system and incentive policies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    13. Marius Băban & Călin Florin Băban & Tudor Mitran, 2023. "Universities as an External Knowledge Source for Industry: Investigating the Antecedents’ Impact on the Importance Perception of Their Collaboration in Open Innovation Using an Ordinal Regression-Neur," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-23, March.
    14. Junhong Qu & Xiaoli Hao, 2022. "Digital Economy, Financial Development, and Energy Poverty Based on Mediating Effects and a Spatial Autocorrelation Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-24, July.
    15. Charfeddine, Lanouar & Umlai, Mohamed, 2023. "ICT sector, digitization and environmental sustainability: A systematic review of the literature from 2000 to 2022," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    16. Ricardo Dahis & Christiane Szerman, 2023. "Decentralizing Development: Evidence from Government Splits," Monash Economics Working Papers 2023-18, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    17. Graziella Bertocchi, 2016. "The legacies of slavery in and out of Africa," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, December.
    18. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.
    19. Long Xue & Qianyu Zhang & Xuemang Zhang & Chengyu Li, 2022. "Can Digital Transformation Promote Green Technology Innovation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-20, June.
    20. Østergaard, P.A. & Lund, H. & Thellufsen, J.Z. & Sorknæs, P. & Mathiesen, B.V., 2022. "Review and validation of EnergyPLAN," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    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:17:y:2025:i:9:p:4241-:d:1651039. 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.