Abstract
Scientific environmental policies promote energy efficiency improvement by influencing the industrial structure and investment in R&D and innovation. In view of the insufficient impact of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (Action Plan for short) on energy efficiency, this paper takes 30 provinces and municipalities of the Chinese Mainland during 2004–2017 as samples and investigates the impact of China’s Action Plan on energy efficiency as well as the impact path by means of the DID method. This paper finds a significant statistical relationship between the two. The following conclusions are drawn. Firstly, the Action Plan significantly promotes the improvement of provincial energy efficiency. Secondly, the Action Plan has heterogeneous impacts on the energy efficiency in different provinces. This heterogeneity is mainly reflected in the differences in resource endowments and the different intensities of environmental governance in different provinces. Thirdly, the upgrading and rationalization of the industrial structure and the investment in R&D and innovation have significantly different moderating effects on the Action Plan’s impact on energy efficiency. The industrial structure rationalization and the investment in R&D and innovation will enhance the promotion effect of the Action Plan on energy efficiency, while the “quantity” of the industrial structure upgrading will weaken this promotion effect, and the moderating effect of the “quality” of the industrial structure upgrading is not significant.
Highlights
The results show that environmental regulations can effectively improve the labor productivity, energy efficiency, and environmental efficiency of the manufacturing industry in the short term, but in the long run, they inhibit patent output and squeeze out R&D investment, only improving energy efficiency
The results show that the pilot regulation can significantly reduce carbon emissions to improve the single-factor and total-factor energy efficiency, and the mechanism test shows that the regulation can improve the energy efficiency by promoting technological innovation and the marketization of enterprises
(1) and (2) but fail to pass the significance test at the 10% level in Columns (3) and (4), indicating that the Action Plan has heterogeneous effects on the energy efficiency of regions with different resource endowments. This heterogeneity effect is embodied in the fact that the Action Plan can significantly promote the energy efficiency of the eastern coastal region with high resource endowments, while it has no significant impact on the energy efficiency of the central inland region and the remote western region
Summary
Behind the rapid economic development is the overexploitation of energy resources and the continuous reduction in environmental quality, leading to the contradiction between energy supply and demand and causing resource conflicts and serious environmental pollution. In this context, it is critical to study and improve energy efficiency in order to fully reduce energy consumption, protect the environment, and promote the comprehensive and coordinated development of economy, society, and ecology [1]. Improving energy efficiency can reduce excessive energy consumption and curb the trend of environmental degradation from the source of pollution, and energy efficiency can effectively reflect the effects of energy-saving and emission-reduction measures in the environmental regulations of various countries [2]
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