Abstract
Energy intensity measured by energy consumption per unit of GDP has always been the main assessment indicator for the design of energy-saving policies, but its accuracy is highly dependent on the reliability of GDP data. This paper finds that the indicator accuracy is improving after the central government has included energy intensity into the performance appraisal system for local officials. This means that the energy-saving target-based performance evaluation has restrained the data misrepresentation behavior of local officials. Further mechanism analysis shows that the pressure of energy saving restricts the development of the industrial sector, which weakens the ability of local governments to manipulate GDP data, thus improving the accuracy of energy intensity statistics. These findings provide some insightful references for China’s future green development and policy design.
Highlights
Energy intensity, calculated by energy consumption per unit of GDP, is an important measure of energy efficiency
The t-statistics are reported in parentheses and clustered at the provincial level
Energy intensity has always been the main measurement for the energy-saving policy design, its accuracy is affected by the false report of the GDP data
Summary
Energy intensity, calculated by energy consumption per unit of GDP, is an important measure of energy efficiency. On the one hand, it is obvious that the overestimation of GDP data cannot only provide excellent economic growth performance and make it easier to achieve the goals of energy intensity reduction (Lo, 2014; Lo, 2020) This provides a higher incentive for local governments to falsely report economic growth data, which may further weaken the data accuracy. If GDP statistics are blindly improved without corresponding increase in energy consumption, it will raise a question and increase the risk of false data being found (Rawski, 2001) From this point of view, the central government includes the energy intensity indicators into the performance evaluation for local officials, which may inhibit the GDP misrepresentation and improve the accuracy of energy-saving data.
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