Abstract
China is in a transition period—its government has been expanding imports and pushing itself to shift from a world factory to a world market. One of the aims is to promote energy reform and ensure energy security. Taking the resource-based regions of China as objects, based on 2003–2017 panel data, this paper investigates energy efficiency loss by the stochastic frontier approach and the effects of different technical inefficiency items. Surprisingly, quantitative results show that 99.9% energy efficiency loss in these regions is caused by technical inefficiency (which had never been found and discussed in previous studies). However, this does not mean that China’s efforts to expand imports as a way to improve energy efficiency and energy security are undesirable. Instead, interestingly, it is import (−0.083***) rather than industrial structure (0.524***) that can significantly reduce energy efficiency loss. Then, it employs the counter-fact test to quantify the positive accelerating effect of human capital (average as high as 4.1%) as a key factor of absorptive capacity in the technology spillover. Lastly, it puts forward the corresponding policy suggestions in energy fields, to solve the problem effectively, especially the “comprehensive technology spreading center” and “innovative three-dimensional talent supplementary and flow mechanism.”
Highlights
China is in a transition period of high-quality economic development—its government has been expanding imports since 2012 and pushing itself to shift from a world factory to a world market
This study extends the current body of knowledge regarding technical inefficiency items and energy efficiency loss in resource-based regions in developing countries
In order to investigate the influence of import trade on the energy efficiency in resource-based regions and the role of human capital in it, this paper takes the gradually open and resource-intensive regions in China as the objects, and uses the stochastic frontier analysis method to carry on the measurement analysis
Summary
China is in a transition period of high-quality economic development—its government has been expanding imports since 2012 and pushing itself to shift from a world factory to a world market. Using the input–output analysis, other researchers analyzed the embodied CO2 emissions of China’s import and export products and suggested that China should carry out electricity pricing reforms and increase renewable energy to improve its energy efficiency (Lin and Sun 2010). We take the resource-based regions of China as objects to investigate energy efficiency loss by the stochastic frontier approach and the effects of different technical inefficiency items, the import trade. This paper contributes to the research on energy efficiency by putting forward corresponding policymaking suggestions This provides new insight into reducing energy efficiency loss via import trade in China and other developing countries. The technical inefficiency items of this paper mainly include industrial structure, energy price, energy consumption structure, import trade, and human capital, among which import trade and human capital are the core independent variables.
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