Research On The Impacts On Energy Efficiency In China

Energy problem has always become major and important issue of China'seconomic and social sustainable development.China's current energy situation isnot optimistic,it may be mainly reflected in three aspects:consumption demand isincreasingly growing,resource constraint has become growing: Energy efficiency isrelatively lower,the task of saving energy and reducing consumption is verydifficult.Improving Energy efficiency helps to alleviate these problems,and toenhance the overall competitiveness of the economy.The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a comprehensive,systematic andaccurate evaluation on China's energy efficiency and its affecting factors by the useof a variety of quantitative methods from the perspectives of regions,industries,sectors and so on.The conclusions of this thesis are as follows:First, the dissertation discusses the interaction mechanisms between energy efficiencyand its affecting factors by the use of cointegration and error correction model.The studyshows that there exists a long-run equilibrium relationship among energy efficiency,technology progress,energy price,adjustment of industrial structure,opening to theoutside world and industrialization from the period of reform.Secondly, The factors decomposition of energy intensity from the perspectives ofregions, industries and sectors reveals the mainly great contribution of efficiency factors toenergy intensity in China,and the structure factors play a small role on the decline inChina's energy intensity.Thirdly, based on the total factor energy efficiency index through DEA method, thethesis empirically investigates the inter-regional disparity of energy efficiency and theircauses from 1986 to 2005,it shows that the mean total factor energy efficiency of Chinaand eastern,central,western regions are respectively 0.779,0.8756,0.7833 and 0.6693.There exists non-linear relationship between total factor energy efficiency and economicdevelopment,with the development of economy energy efficiency shows thecharacteristics of the inverted "U" type.The research on energy efficiency and industrialtransition reveals that the overall level of energy efficiency of China's industrial sectors islower, the changes of industrial energy efficiency have obvious features of industrial transition.The research on the disparity and convergence of energy productivity revealsthat overall regional disparity of energy productivity does not show significantconvergence, but for different characteristics during different periods.Convergence ofenergy productivity among East,Central and Western regions show differentcharacteristics.The model of absoluteβconvergence and conditionalβconvergence tellsthat overall regional disparity of energy productivity is becoming narrow gradually, howto consolidate and develop such trend has a long way to go.In general,the study on inter-regional,inter-industry disparities and their affectionfactors of energy efficiency indicates that further deepening the reform of stateenterprises,the implementation of optimization and upgrading of the industrial structureand energy consumption structure,maintaining an appropriate degree of industrycompetition and a reasonable business scale,the strengthening of technology spillovereffects by international trade to improve energy efficiency, which can contribute to makeinter-region,inter-industry disparities of energy efficiency narrow and improve China'soverall energy efficiency level.Finally, his dissertation studies the internal mechanism of trade liberalizationaffecting energy use by constructing a theoretical model.The results show that: Tradeliberalization mainly influences energy use through scale effect,technology effect andstructural effect; Trade liberalization will increase per capita energy use while decreaseenergy use intensity.Moreover, with the improvement of per capita GDP level, per capitaenergy use and energy use intensity shows the inverted "U" curve with initial ascendingand the subsequent descent trend.