Environmental Regulation,Technological Innovation And Energy Consumption

The paper is a theoretical and empirical study on the impact of environmental regulation on energy consumption.If the key goal of the people-oriented ecological civilization construction is to guarantee and improve the welfare of citizens,it is a driving force to promote sustainable energy development for ecological civilization construction.Understanding the current characteristics of China's energy consumption and how to effectively enhance energy efficiency is not only related to the speed and efficiency of building a modern energy system,but also sustainable growth of the national economy.However,China's sustained growth of energy consumption and sharp contradiction between supply and demand have made it difficult to meet the needs of future energy development.Therefore,it is a meaningful research topic to overcome obstacles in the energy development process.Since 16 th National Congress,the government has promulgated many environmental regulation policies.Especially at the Nineteenth National Congress of,the environmental regulation has become an important regulatory measure of the government.Designing scientific and reasonable environmental incentive and restraint mechanism has been regarded as an important breakthrough to achieve energy development.Based on the above background,under the premise of considering energy price,energy structure and other characteristic variables,this paper makes a theoretical empirical study on the environmental regulation affecting energy consumption.Based on the existent research,the dissertation systematically constructs the theoretical analysis framework of environmental regulation affecting energy consumption.Under the guidance of this framework,this paper analyzes the regional differences and time-spatial evolution of Chinese energy consumption.Furthermore,the direct and indirect effects of environmental regulation on energy consumption are empirically tested.(1)Main contents of this study1)This paper systematically constructs a theoretical analysis framework of environmental regulation affecting energy consumption.Starting from the three key research themes of environmental regulation,technological innovation and energy consumption,this paper defines and classifies relevant concepts.Then,this article reviews the theories and literature on the impact of environmental regulation on energy consumption.Finally,the dissertation uses the methods of mathematical derivation to construct the theoretical framework of environmental regulation affecting energy consumption.2)This paper describes the regional differences and time-spatial evolution of Chinese energy consumption.Based on macroeconomic statistics,we use Dagum Gini Coefficient,Nuclear Density Estimation and Markov Chain Method to explain the characteristics,regional differences and time-spatial evolution of Chinese energy consumption.Spatial econometric model will be used to test the convergence mechanism of energy consumption in China.Finally,we identify the causes of regional differences of energy consumption in China.3)This paper empirically tests the effect of environmental regulation and technological innovation on energy consumption.Based on the theoretical analysis framework,combined with the existing research on environmental regulation affecting energy consumption,the direct and indirect effects of different types of environmental regulation on energy consumption are empirically tested by using feasible generalized least squares method.Besides,the net effect of environmental regulation on energy consumption is measured by counterfactual simulation.(2)Main conclusions of this study1)Energy consumption is increasing in the whole country,east,central and west regions,indicating that there is a significant characteristic of spatial disequilibrium.A U-shaped pattern can be found in energy consumption in China.The disparity among regions is the major source of overall inequality in energy consumption,which contributes to 54.5%.In the long term,the probability for inter-district transfer between different types of energy consumption is extremely small.The evolution of China's energy consumption will show a trend of strengthening the middle and low-end and weakening the high-end in the future.The energy consumption across the country has multipolar differentiation trend and the characteristic of club convergence.In addition,the causes of regional energy consumption differences in China are fundamentally due to changes in environmental regulation and technological innovation.2)In theoretical analysis,there are direct and indirect transmission paths between environmental regulation and energy consumption.Under the direct conduction path,the implementation of environmental regulations can effectively suppress energy consumption,whether in a completely competitive market or a non-competitive market.Under the indirect conduction path,environmental regulation affects energy consumption through the intermediary variable of technological innovation.The implementation of environmental regulation policies by the government will help stimulate manufacturers to carry out technological innovation.However,the improvement of technological innovation level is difficult to effectively reduce energy consumption.3)In empirical analysis,with the deepening of environmental regulation intensity,the “forcing effect”of economic and supervisory environmental regulation are more obviously reflected,while the “saving effect” of legal environmental regulation is not significant,and the phenomenon of “green paradox” appears.The “rebound effect” of energy led to new energy demand is greater than the energy savings generated by technological innovation in the indirect conduction path,embodied as a suppression effect.In the subgroup test,the direct impact of legal and supervisory environmental regulations on energy consumption in the eastern and mid-western regions is concentrated as a “forcing effect”.Economic,legal and supervisory environmental regulations have produced a significant “rebound effects” in the eastern and mid-western regions.It is found that the net effect of different types of environmental regulations on energy consumption is negative in the result of counterfactual simulation.Based on theoretical analysis and empirical findings,this paper puts forward policy suggestions from the aspects of improving the environmental regulation policy system,controlling the total energy consumption,building a cross-regional energy-saving cooperative mechanism and strengthening the supply of energy-saving technology.