Dr. Xiaodong Fu recently had a paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production. The paper titled‘Economic growth, electricity consumption, and urbanization in China: A tri-variate investigation using panel data modeling from a regional disparity perspective’, was coauthored with Na Wang from School of Applied Economics, Renmin University of China, Shaobin Wang from Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the causal relations between economic growth, electricity consumption, and uranization indicators. Heterogeneous panel data techniques are performed to help shed light on the importance of the heterogeneity among three economic regions within China from 2000 to 2017. Our results show that the three indicators are all stationary and cointegrated after the first difference. Heterogeneity of the Granger causality is found between these three variables varies across the eastern, central, and western economic regions in China. In the long run, the eastern region presents a similar trend as the national level that long-run Granger causality of the three variables is found. Conversely, there is a unidirectional long-run causal relationship from economic growth to electricity consumption in the central region, while there is a bi-directional long-run causal relationship between economic growth and electricity consumption in the western region in China. Our empirical findings highlight the “urbanization ladder” effect which implies that as development, urbanization factor in the eastern region may play a promotion role in the tri-variate system when the urbanization reaches a higher level, while it may lack the influence in the central and western regions of China. From a regional perspective, it is further indicated that the improvement of urbanization can be practical measures in the central and western parts of China in the long run.

Other information

Publication Date:2021

Journal:Journal of Cleaner Production

Journal Issue: 318（2021）

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128529

Read the paper here.