Economic Growth Of China Under Energy-environment Constraints:Theoretical Analysis And Empirical Research

"Economic growth" is the core of macroeconomics, and is a very attractive research field in modern economy development history of the world. Along with the expansion of human economic activities and the complication of economic environment, the theory of economic growth has a constantly evolution following to the practice of economic development, and so far the research on economic growth factors and dynamical source still continued to expand and deepen. More and more energy and environmental factors have been introduced into the framework of growth analysis.Energy, economy and environment are interdependent, mutual influence and mutual restraint. In sustainable development space, resources and environment are not only the endogenous variables of economic development, but also the rigid constraints of the scale and speed of economic development. After 37 years reform and opening up policy, now, huge energy consumption and the high environmental costs which attached to China’s rapid economic growth resulted in energy-economy-environment system imbalance development, the reverse effects that from energy and environment system to economic system are gradually strengthened, traditional driving force of economic growth gradually decay, manufacturing technology spillover bottleneck become more and more obvious, the third industry technical progress is relatively slow and the sustainability of economic growth is difficult to maintain. Under that aforementioned background, how to scientifically understand the regional energy, economy, environment cooperative interaction rules, and how to quantitatively deconstruct the endogenous relation about the three, and how to measure the contribution and change trend of Chinese economic growth sources under the constraints of energy and environment, and how to accurately grasp the structure and changes of economic growth driving source in different provinces, and how to accelerate the mechanism of the conversion of the growth source power and the win-win in energy-saving and emission-reduction and economic growth, those are the time problems need to be solved in theory, and that is also the main purpose and the key problems to be solved of this paper.This paper will be based on the detailed characterization about the development circumstance of energy-economy-environment (3E) system and the typical facts of economic growth in China, and will use econometric methods, combining theoretical analysis and empirical test, static analysis and dynamic analysis, qualitative and quantitative analysis, to research the key issues. The main conclusions and possible contributions are as follows:The 3E system in China has imbalance development and low degree of coupling. Based on the definition of the internal relations of 3E system, from the time, space and department three dimension, we analysis the current development situation of China’ 3E system, construct the evaluation index system of 3E system coordination degree and the comprehensive evaluation model to quantitatively evaluate the coupling coordination of China’s 3E system. Conclusions showed that within the scope of the study, the whole mean value of coupling coordination of 3E system development is in a low degree and a serious uncoordinated edge, and the mean value of coupling coordination of energy-economic system development is relatively high and in weak coordination, and the mean value of coupling coordination of economic -environment system development is very low and in a serious uncoordinated state. However, since the "Twelfth Five Year" period, the indexes showed different degrees recovery. Under preliminary judgment, the early fast development of China economic system did not take into account the coordination with the environmental system.The reverse-control effect that China’s energy-environmental system acts on economic growth is increasing, and that transferring economic growth sources is a key breach to reverse the negative feedback effect. We construct simultaneous equation model on the interaction mechanism of 3E system, and quantitatively test and qualitatively analysis the internal relations of 3E system, and estimate and analysis the reverse effect that China’s energy-environmental system acts on economic growth. The conclusion is that the growth of total energy consumption can be caused by energy consumption of unit GDP, rate of energy processing and conversion, industrial structure evolution in the process of industrialization, urbanization level, economic system scale, environment pollution factors. The increase of energy consumption, the number of employees at the end of a year, the investment of social fixed assets will all cause the scale of economic system changes in same direction, and the change of environment pollution factors caused changes in reverse direction, and the state figure of energy consumption structure and the comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste changes will cause changes in reverse direction, and the changes of the scales of the economic and energy system will lead environment pollution factors changing in same direction. The negative effects on the environmental system from high growth of GDP and total energy consumption have long accumulated, and the environmental system has reverse effects which gradually increased to the energy system and the economic system.The growth contribution of the traditional factor inputs is obviously attenuated, and the sources of economic growth in China are undergoing structural change. Based on clearing the modeling idea, methods option and benchmark model of economic growth which are under energy-environment constraints, under the framework of endogenous growth theory, from two aspects of input and output considering energy and environmental factors into human capital spillover model, through estimating and comparing the application of 14 econometric equations in 7 kinds of scenario, we chose two models which emphasize the internal effect of human capital and the spillover effect of human capital accumulation, then use the two models to estimate, measure and decompose the output elasticity, contribution degree, composition and change of the various sources of driving China’s economic growth. Then it concludes the followings: the inhibitory effect of energy and environmental problems on economic growth become more and more remarkable, and under the constrain of energy and environment, the growth contribution of traditional factor input continued to decay, and the growth contribution of total factor productivity (TFP) continued to increase, and the structure of driving factors of TFP growth rate is transferring etc.There is a big difference in the structure of provincial economic growth source in China, and the stage fluctuation is obvious. Using the panel data from 1990 to 2014, paper measure and decompose the provincial economic growth source, and comprehensively compare and assess the sources composition and changes of provincial economic growth under energy and environmental constraints. The conclusion is that: The compositions of growth sources which are selected as samples from 30 provinces have great gaps. There is an obvious fluctuation on the three periods (1990-1996,1997-2008,2009-2014),and physical capital accumulation is still the first major source of economic growth, and contribution of labor input for growth in most of the provinces is decline, and contribution of environmental input, innovation and investment has a significant increase.Based on the rethink of the main problems encountered in the research process and combining the main conclusions of theoretical and empirical analysis, this paper points out that fostering industrial symbiosis network, and constructing a benign interaction mechanism of energy-saving and emission-reduction and industrial structure evolution, and promoting transformation of major sources of economic growth are the fundamental path of China’s economic breaking through energy and environmental constraint, realizing win-win energy-saving and emission-reduction and economic growth, and promoting the coordinated development of 3E system.