How does industrial convergence affect the energy efficiency of manufacturing in newly industrialized countries? Fresh evidence from China

Abstract

As a strategy, industrial convergence is an important link in building a new economic system. To explore the impact of industrial convergence on the energy efficiency of manufacturing, we first incorporated industrial convergence and energy efficiency into a conventional macro-growth model and output density model, and analyzed the relationship between them at the theoretical level. Then, taking the convergence of the information industry and manufacturing in China as the research object, the impact and transmission mechanism of industrial convergence on energy efficiency were empirically investigated. Furthermore, three new techno-economic relevance matrices were constructed to study the spillover effect of industrial convergence using a spatial autoregressive combined model. The results showed that: (1) Industrial convergence improved the energy efficiency of manufacturing, which remained robust after overcoming endogeneity. Moreover, there was a scale effect whereby the deeper the convergence, the greater the marginal effect. (2) There was a spillover effect with regard to industrial relevance. Through cross-industry imitation and learning, industrial convergence improved the energy efficiency of the entire manufacturing sector. (3) Technological innovation was an effective mediating channel for industrial convergence to function. Industrial convergence not only had a direct impact on technological innovation, but also had an indirect impact through industrial scale expansion and factor structure optimization, thereby improving energy efficiency. Our findings provided insights for newly industrialized countries to promote the convergence of informatization and industrialization in an effort to transform and upgrade manufacturing.