China Economic Growth Driving Force: Energy Efficiency And Technology Progress Research

China’s economy has experienced30years’ rapid growth, the Chinese model ofeconomic growth has become a hot object of the world economists’ research. At the sametime of affirming the miracle of China’s economic growth, many scholars have realized that alot of problems have accumulated in the long-term high-speed economic growth. Especiallyafter the appearance of increasing energy resources scarcity and environmental pollutionproblems in recent years, whether China’s future rapid growth economic maintains sustainableor not has been highly concerned. The essence of the problem is what the driving force is ofdriving China’s future economic growth? Generally, the main driving force of economicgrowth can be divided into increasing of factor inputs and improving of total factorproductivity(TFP). Ever since a long time ago, China’s economic growth mainly depends onthe increasing in factor inputs, rather than total factor productivity improvement. Meanwhile,China’s economic growth costs too much energy resources and low energy efficiency hasbecome a prominent problem, and also brought a serious environmental problem. lack ofmotivation has become the primary problem of restricting China’s long-term economic growth.In the basis of endogenous economic growth theory, the productivity theory, econometrictheory, energy economics, innovation management, the article takes energy efficiency,technological progress and their interaction’s influence on China’s economic growth as mainlines to study the driving force of China’s economic growth.The full article is divided into seven chapters. Chapter one introduces the background,significance, and the literature review of this research; introduces the research methods, basicideas, main content and innovative points.The second chapter sets the theory foundation of the whole text. On the basis ofintroducing the concept and meaning of the economic growth, the article summarizes andcomments on the important theory of economic growth, and discriminates the basic conceptsof production factors and total factor productivity that related to economic growth.Chapter three analyzes the technological progress driving force in China’s economicgrowth. First by using two level nested CES production function model, the article analyzesthe independent innovation and external technology acquisition’s influence on China’sregional technology progress. Results show that both the independent innovation and externaltechnology acquisition have positive impact on China’s regional technology progress. But theimpact coefficient of former one is higher than the latter one. Second, using non-parametric DEA-Malmquist Index to estimate the total factor productivity in China between1979and2010and calculate the contribution rate of technology progress on economic growth. Theestimation suggests that China’s total factor productivity growth rate of aggregate economic isnegative, that is, the contribution of technology progress rate on China’s economic growth isshowing a downward trend. China’s economic growth is mainly dependent on the increase infactor inputs. In three regions, the growth rate of total factor productivity in the eastern part isthe highest, western the second and central part the last.Chapter four analyzes the energy efficiency driving factor of China’s economic growth.First of all, the article compares China’s energy efficiency with other countries in mainsingle-factor energy efficiency, and draws the preliminary conclusion that China’s energyefficiency is relatively lower. Secondly, the article does cointegration test and Grangercausality test between the energy consumption, energy efficiency and economic growth. Thetest results indicate two-way causal relationship between GDP and energy consumption, GDPand energy efficiency. Thirdly, establish provincial total factor energy efficiency evaluationmodel and use data envelopment analysis to evaluate the provincial energy efficiency. Theresult shows that the total factor energy efficiency(TFEE) of Beijing, Jiangsu, provinces withlowest Anhui, Fujian, Shandong, Guangdong and other11provinces is always in productionefficiency frontier; Provinces with lowest TFEE include Chongqing, Guizhou, Shanxi andNingxia. Finally, the article set a two-sector endogenous growth model, to calculate thebalanced growth path of economic growth in the energy constraints. Conclusion shows thatthe economic growth rate on the balanced path without technology progress depends on theenergy growth rate. Positive growth rate in energy is fundamental to keep positive long-termeconomic growth. if the energy growth rate is negative, then the economy can not maintainlong-term sustainable growth.The fifth chapter is an interactive analysis of energy efficiency and technology progressin China’s economic growth. First, the article describes the interaction theory and mechanismbetween energy efficiency and technology progress. Then, it uses non-parametric DEAMalmquist index to give decomposition for the rate of technology progress of China’s30provinces, and establishes the econometric model to evaluate technolgy progress and itsdecomposition factors influence on the energy efficiency. From the national point of view,technology progress has a positive impact on energy efficiency, and improvement in energyefficiency is mainly dependent on technical efficiency."Hard" technology progress is far toachieve the desired requirements. Technology progress’s influence coefficients on energyefficiency in three regions vary greatly. Eastern region has the largest coefficient, which followed by middle region. Influence coefficient in western region.is negative. Finally, thispaper establishes the endogenous growth model in which regional innovation input, externaltechnology acquisition and energy consumption are considered to be input factors ofproduction function. It analyzes the influence of energy constraints on regional innovationoutput and technology spillover effect of external technology acquisition. At the same time,the paper calculates the “growth drag” of energy constraints on the regional innovation outputand the underlying factors that will influence the “growth drag”. The empirical results showthat external technology acquisition is still an important external driving force of improvingthe regional technology progress. However, under the assumption of no energy constraint,spillover effect of external technology acquisition on regional technology progress has beenexaggerated.Chapter six analyzes China’s economic growth under the double driving of technologyprogress and energy efficiency. Based on the endogenous model of Romer and theRamsey-Cass-Cooperman model, the article establishes an endogenous economic growthmodel with three sectors which are driving by intended knowledge production. It calculatesthe optimal balance economic growth path which is driving by technology progress andenergy efficiency. The analysis showed that the economic growth rate in balanced path isequal to the weighted sum of technological growth rate and energy growth rate, that is to saythat long-term economic growth is determined by technology progress and energy inputs.Chapter seven is policy suggestions. The article puts forward some suggestions that canimprove China’s energy efficiency, escalate technology progress, improve China’s innovativeability and promote economic growth.Chapter eight is conclusions.and research outlook. It summarizes the conclusions in eachchapter. Finally, it points out shortcomings in this research, and discusses the researchoutlook.