The impact of technological progress on energy intensity in China (2005–2016): Evidence from a geographically and temporally weighted regression model

Abstract

This paper selected the relevant data of China’s thirty administrative regions from 2005 to 2016, and constructed a geographically and temporally weighted regression model of technological progress and energy intensity, to fully analyze the heterogeneous impact of technological progress on energy intensity. The results showed that: (1) The energy intensity of China’s different regions, in the long run, had an obvious spatial agglomeration effect and a significant positive correlation in spatial. (2) The spatial heterogeneity of the impact of technological progress on energy intensity changed smoothly and steadily in the temporal dimension, and the dominant factors affecting the energy intensity gradually shifted from foreign direct investment, opening-up degree, human capital to research and development funds from 2005 to 2016. (3) The temporal heterogeneity of the effect of technological progress on energy intensity varied greatly from different spatial dimensions, specifically, the influence of research and development funds on energy intensity was high in the western regions and low in the eastern regions, but that of the foreign direct investment was the opposite, the spatial distribution of the effects of opening-up degree, human capital on energy intensity was dispersed and had no obvious aggregation phenomenon.