The Impact Of Population Agglomeration On Urban Energy Efficiency

Since 2019,many cities in China have successively announced the cancellation and relaxation of settlement restrictions.This move will further increase the city’s attractiveness to the migrant population.Due to the existence of the urban siphon effect,the population gradually agglomerates to the central cities,but the large-scale population agglomeration will also increase the total energy consumption of the city.In 2020,the Chinese government will propose to "strive to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030,and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060".In 2020,the Chinese government will propose to "strive to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030,and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060".Therefore,under the background of strictly implementing the "dual control" system of total energy consumption and energy intensity.Improving energy efficiency has become one of the most effective ways to deal with energy shortages,release emission reduction potential,ensure energy security,and achieve the "dual carbon" goal.Therefore,analyzing the effects of population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency from different perspectives has important practical significance for the formulation of urban population policies and the promotion of a new urbanization strategy centered on people.In recent years,scholars at home and abroad have done a lot of research on the relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency.However,in the existing studies,population density was used to represent the level of population agglomeration,and only agglomeration results were used to investigate the relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency,lacking research and discussion on the occurrence process of population agglomeration.First of all,the agglomeration of urban population is the result of the migration of the floating population of cities.Floating population is attracted by the high employment income in urban areas to migrate to cities.Thus forming the phenomenon of population agglomeration.Secondly,after the population migrates to the city and gets a job,there will be a periodic population flow between the work area and the residential area,and this flow is completed by means of transportation and roads.It can be seen that the level of transportation infrastructure will have an important impact on the level of urban population mobility and agglomeration.In addition,how many people can stay in the city for a long time after the formation of the population agglomeration is related to the scale of the city’s absorption of the floating population.On the one hand,industrial transformation and development will change the need for the urban labor market;on the other hand,the business entities that provide jobs will hire more workers to expand the scale of the enterprise after receiving financial loan support.It can be seen that the level of urban industrial development and financial development also determines the urban employment carrying capacity to a certain extent,which in turn affects the scale of population agglomeration.In the process of population agglomeration,the city’s attraction to float population,transportation infrastructure,industrial development,and financial development is all closely related to population agglomeration,and then uses "the cause of population agglomeration in the city,and the factors that affect the level of population agglomeration in the city,and the factors that affect the agglomeration scale of the population after the population agglomerates in the city" is the starting point for the research.This paper empirically analyzes the impact of population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency from three aspects:the impact of urban population siphon and population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency,the externality spillover effect of transportation infrastructure,the impact of population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency,and the impact of population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency at different stages of financial development and industrial development.The article first summarizes the related theories of population migration,urban economy and agglomeration economics,then combs the research literature on population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency,and provides theoretical and literature support for analyzing the mechanism of urban population siphonage and population agglomeration affecting urban energy efficiency.In order to investigate the impact of the relative changes in the level of urban population agglomeration within the urban agglomeration on urban energy efficiency,data from 41 cities in the Shanghai,Jiangsu,Zhejiang and Anhui regions from 2006 to 2018 are used as the research sample.The main research content and conclusions of this article can be summarized as following:First,in order to explore the relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency,this paper draws on the theory of maximum entropy and spatial interaction force to construct a formula for calculating the siphon force of urban population,and substitutes the wage level of employees into the formula to calculate the siphon force of each city on the floating population.On this basis,based on the energy input demand function,using the fixed-effect panel stochastic frontier analysis one-step estimation method,while calculating the urban energy efficiency value,the impact of population agglomeration and urban population siphoning on urban energy efficiency is estimated.In the research process,methods such as changing the statistical caliber of population agglomeration variables,replacing variables and reselecting samples were used to test the robustness of the model.The research results showed that:(1)When the siphon effect of urban population is not considered,there is no U-shaped influence relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency.(2)When considering the siphon effect of urban population,the effect of population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency increases with the increase of urban population siphoning power.This article offers a new perspective for the study of the relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency.The research conclusions can provide references for promoting the integration of population policies in Shanghai,Jiangsu,Zhejiang and Anhui,and strengthening the role of regional environmental protection and collaborative governance mechanisms.Second,transportation infrastructure construction improves location accessibility and attracts population to urban agglomeration,thus influencing urban energy efficiency.To explore the impact of transportation infrastructure and population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency and its mechanism.This paper first uses the energy input demand function,based on the scale effect and Hicks neutral technological progress hypothesis,deduces the theoretical framework of transport infrastructure externality spillover effect on urban energy efficiency.Secondly,based on the measured value of urban energy efficiency,the basic mediating effect model and the multi-moderating mediating effect model are constructed to test the mechanism of the interaction between transportation infrastructure,population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency,taking location accessibility and urban population siphon force as moderating variables.Furthermore,model conclusions are verified again through robustness test and endogenous processing.The results show that:(1)population agglomeration is a mediating variable of transport infrastructure externality spillover effect on urban energy efficiency.(2)The direct effect of transport infrastructure externality spillover on urban energy efficiency decreases with the increase of location accessibility,and the intermediate effect of transport infrastructure externality spillover on urban energy efficiency through population agglomeration increases with the increase of urban population siphoning power.The research conclusions provide a fresh angle of interpretation for the relationship between transportation infrastructure,population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency,and have certain reference value for the formulation of regional integrated development policies.Thirdly,different stages of industrial development have different demands for labor force,so the attraction of cities to float population will also change,and industrial development is affected by the level of regional financial development to a considerable extent.Therefore,this paper tries to use the threshold model to verify the non-linear relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency from the perspective of a threshold effect.Firstly,the basic panel threshold model without interaction terms,the panel threshold model with interaction terms and the endogenous dynamic panel threshold model with kink constraints are used in the selection of threshold models.To verify the impact of population agglomeration and siphon force on urban energy efficiency at different stages of financial development and industrial development.Secondly,the labor population agglomeration variable is used to replace the population agglomeration variable to test the robustness of the model.The research results show that:(1)When the urban population siphon effect is not considered,the relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency has a nonlinear industrial development threshold effect,and the financial development threshold effect is unstable.(2)When considering the urban population siphon effect,the adjustment effect of urban population siphon force on the relationship between population agglomeration and urban energy efficiency has a nonlinear financial progress and industrial development threshold effect.The research results are helpful for government managers to understand the impact of population agglomeration and urban population siphoning on urban energy efficiency at different stages of industrial development and financial development,so as to steadily and orderly enhance the economic and population carrying capacity of central cities and other economically advantageous regions.The main innovations of this paper are as follows:First,starting from the reasons of population migration,variables reflecting the attractiveness of cities to float population are introduced into the study on the impact of population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency.Second,based on the population migration "push-pull" theory,draw lessons from Wilson based on maximum entropy theory to build the space interaction strength calculation model of thinking,the population moved out as a strong flow of space effect,the regional income gap as the source of the city attractive to the floating population,urban population siphon force calculation formula is constructed.Thirdly,the energy demand is introduced into the production function as a variable affecting output,and the energy input demand function is derived.Based on this function,fixed-effect stochastic frontier analysis one-step estimation method is used to estimate the value of urban energy efficiency and its influencing factors.Fourthly,based on the scale effect and Hicks neutral technological progress hypothesis,the fixed capital stock is divided into transport infrastructure stock and non-transport infrastructure stock,and the theoretical framework of transport infrastructure externality spillover effect on urban energy efficiency is derived.Using the improved hierarchical test method of moderating mediating effect model,this paper examines whether there is a mediating path of transport infrastructure externality spillover effect on urban energy efficiency through population agglomeration,and whether the mediating path and direct impact path are moderated by the symphonic force of urban population and location accessibility.This article provides a new theoretical analysis framework for the research on the effect of population agglomeration on urban energy efficiency.Based on the above research results,it can be seen that the population siphon force have an impact on the level of population agglomeration in each city in the urban agglomeration by attracting population movement.An increase in the population of the central city means a decrease in the population of the surrounding small and medium-sized cities.However,government managers should fully realize the importance of population agglomeration to the economic development of cities and urban agglomerations,so as to combine the size of each city’s population and the actual level of transportation infrastructure,industrial development level,financial development level and employment carrying capacity.Formulate population policies and urban development paths scientifically and rationally,give play to the positive externalities of population agglomeration,and improve urban energy efficiency.