Exploring the effect of producer services agglomeration on China’s energy efficiency under environmental constraints

Abstract

This paper makes an empirical analysis of the effect of producer services agglomeration on China’s energy efficiency under environmental constraints (EEE) by using spatial Durbin model. The results show that at the national level, the urbanization agglomeration of producer services not only improves the local EEE significantly, but also has an obvious spatial spillover effect on the surrounding regions, while the localization agglomeration of producer services is only beneficial to the improvement of the local EEE. From the regional perspective, both the urbanization and localization agglomeration of producer services show significant promotion effect and spatial spillover effect on China’s EEE in the east region, and the promotion effect of the urbanization agglomeration of producer services is greater, while the improvement of EEE in the central and west regions mainly depend on the MAR externality of producer services agglomeration, and its spatial spillover effects are not obvious. Moreover, the above empirical results exhibit strong robustness. Based on these empirical findings, this paper puts forward some specific suggestions for improving China’s EEE so as to achieve the multi-win of economic growth, energy conservation and environmental protection. The study contributes to improving the environmental quality and speeding up the construction of Beautiful China.