Energy-saving technological change, regional economy growth and endowment structure: empirical evidence from Chinese cities

Abstract

ABSTRACT We analyse the relationship between Energy-saving Technological Change (ESTC) and economic growth, using panel data of 280 cities in China from 2010 to 2018, and explore the possible moderating effect and threshold effect of factor endowment structure between technological progress of energy-saving and regional economic growth. We have the following findings: (1) ESTC has a significant negative effect on regional economic growth. Each unit increase in ESTC reduces economic growth by 0.4–0.8 percentage points. (2) An increase in factor endowment structure will significantly alleviate the inhibiting effect of ESTC on regional economic growth, showing a specific moderating effect. (3) The impact of ESTC on regional economic growth is heterogeneous depending on the regional factor endowment structure. However, the regions with a capital stock per capita of more than 92.002, ESTC will have no impact on potential economic growth rates. Thus, we provide a new perspective on how to achieve ESTC without compromising economic growth.