Research On The Impact Of Import Trade On Energy Efficiency In China

As China’s economy enters a new era of development,the extensive development model characterized by "high input,high consumption,and high pollution" is no longer sufficient to meet the demand for "green development".Currently,China is the second-largest economy and the largest energy consumer in the world.Although China is one of the world’s highest total energy reserves,its per capita energy reserves are significantly lower than the global average.As a country rich in coal,and poor in oil and gas,it isn’t easy to alter the coal-dominated energy structure in the short term.The continuous growth in energy demand due to China’s industrialization and urbanization has increased its dependence on foreign energy,posing a threat to national energy security.Therefore,how to improve energy efficiency effectively,ensure domestic energy security,and reduce environmental impact is a crucial issue that China must consider when formulating and implementing relevant policies.Technological innovation contributes to improving energy efficiency,and foreign trade is not only an important source of technological progress but also a key factor in promoting technological progress.In the past 40 years,China’s foreign trade has experienced significant growth.With China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001,the substantial reduction in import tariffs has promoted the expansion of imports.Import trade plays a crucial role in transforming the economic growth model and improving technological innovation capabilities.In China’s continuous expansion of imports and integration into the global value chain,can import trade improve energy efficiency? This topic is essential for alleviating current energy problems and promoting sustainable social and economic development.In practical terms,since 2018,China has further relaxed import restrictions and taken measures such as lowering tariffs and improving trade facilitation to expand imports deeper to promote the trade balance and China’s economic transformation.In the current policy context,this article explores the impact of import trade on energy efficiency,verifies the applicability of relevant theories at the city level in China,and further distinguishes the heterogeneity of import energy effects for different types of commodities and cities.Based on the research conclusions,targeted policy suggestions are proposed to provide a specific reference basis for the decision-making of relevant departments.In terms of theoretical significance,much literature has conducted extensive research on the impact of technological innovation,industrial structure,and environmental regulations on energy efficiency.Many studies suggest that import trade is conducive to domestic technological innovation and improving production efficiency,which may significantly impact energy efficiency.However,the impact of import trade on energy and the environment has yet to receive sufficient attention from the academic community in China.This article explores the impact of import trade on urban energy efficiency,providing a new research perspective on international trade and energy issues,expanding the research scope of import trade effects,and filling the gaps in theoretical analysis and empirical verification of China’s energy efficiency problems in the existing literature.Based on the framework of "core concepts,literature review and theoretical foundation,theoretical framework,empirical evidence,conclusion and policy recommendations,and prospects",this paper explores the relationship between import trade and energy efficiency.Specifically,the article first clarifies the connotation of import trade and energy efficiency,summarizes the progress and shortcomings of current research,further elaborates on the theoretical foundation of this article,constructs a theoretical model of the impact of import trade on energy efficiency,and successively analyzes the product diversity effect,technological spillover effect,and spatial heterogeneity effect.Finally,the article puts forward relevant policy suggestions and prospects for future research.Next,the paper analyzes the general situation and structural characteristics of import trade in China since its accession to WTO,measures the energy efficiency of Chinese cities,and explores the dynamic trends and regional distribution characteristics.Based on panel data from Chinese cities above the prefecture level from 2000 to 2016,the paper examines the overall impact of import trade on energy efficiency,using instrumental variable methods and various robustness tests to verify the credibility of the results.Meanwhile,the paper analyzes the heterogeneity effects of import trade on energy efficiency using group regression,quantile regression,and threshold regression.Based on the theoretical framework,this paper examines the technology spillover,product diversification,and import competition effects of import trade on energy efficiency.The article then uses geographic and economic characteristics to construct a spatial weight matrix to test the spatial spillover effects of import trade on city energy efficiency.Finally,the paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations based on the research conclusions and future research prospects,taking into account the shortcomings of the study.This article collates and matches the Customs database of RESSET reached to the city level,integrates city economic data,DMSP/OLS nighttime light image,World Bank data and UN trade data for empirical analysis,and obtains the following conclusions:Firstly,import trade has a significant positive effect on city energy efficiency.Using geographic information systems(GIS)to measure the distance from the city to the nearest port as an instrumental variable to mitigate endogeneity,the conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests,such as replacing the dependent variable and excluding macro policy differences.Secondly,the energy efficiency improvement effect of import trade has significant heterogeneity.In terms of imported goods types,the impact of intermediate and capital goods imports on city energy efficiency is significantly more significant than that of consumer goods imports.In terms of city energy efficiency characteristics,the energy efficiency improvement effect of import trade is higher in cities with higher energy efficiency than in cities with lower energy efficiency,indicating a "strong get stronger" trend.Based on the heterogeneity analysis of city geographic location,the energy efficiency effect of import trade is more significant in eastern and northern cities.From the perspective of terrain characteristics,the energy efficiency effect of import trade is much more significant in these cities with low terrain undulation than in cities with high terrain undulation.From the perspective of resource endowments,import trade has a promoting effect on energy efficiency in both resource-based and non-resource-based cities,indicating that import trade can be a path for resourcebased cities to improve energy efficiency.In terms of population size,the energy efficiency improvement effect of import trade is only significant in large and superlarge cities.Finally,from the perspective of city absorptive capacity,the threshold regression shows that the energy efficiency improvement effect of import trade increases with the increase of R&D investment,and higher R&D intensity helps to leverage the impact of import trade.Thirdly,import trade promotes urban energy efficiency through product diversification,technology spillover,and competition effects.Firstly,product diversification through complementary effects increases enterprise productivity,and promotes local economic expansion,thereby further promoting energy efficiency.The strong substitutability of imported goods reduces production costs for enterprises,allowing them to have more funds to invest in research and development,thus improving innovation capabilities and promoting energy efficiency.Secondly,the technology spillover brought by import trade can avoid the duplication of technology development to some extent,reduce the time and human cost of self-development,and improve the technology level in a shorter period.Technological innovation is the most important driving force for enhancing China’s energy efficiency.From the perspective of import competition,the competition effect brought by imported goods to the domestic market will "force" local enterprises to increase investment in Research and Development and allocate resources more reasonably.Therefore,import competition can promote technological innovation,optimize resource allocation,and improve energy utilization efficiency.Fourthly,import trade can not only improve the energy efficiency of local city,but also have a spatial spillover effect on the energy efficiency of surrounding cities due to geographical adjacency and economic interdependence.The global Moran’s index and local Moran scatter plot based on the adjacency matrix,geographic distance matrix,economic distance matrix,and economic-geographic nested matrix all show a significant spatial correlation between import trade and urban energy efficiency.The empirical results of spatial econometrics show that the direct and indirect effects of import trade on urban energy efficiency are significantly positive under four spatial weight matrices.Therefore,the impact of import trade on other cities’ energy efficiency is affected not only by the geographical dimension,but also by social and economic factors.The spatial spillover of energy efficiency improvement through import trade requires promoting communication and exchanges among geographically adjacent cities and strengthening regional economic and trade exchanges.The possible innovation of this article are as follows:Firstly,the paper investigates the impact of import trade on urban energy efficiency from an import perspective,with the urban level as the research scale.The study explores the heterogeneity effect of cities from multiple dimensions,such as topography and absorption capacity,to provide decision-making references for formulating regional energy policies and expand the research scope of international trade effects.Existing literature has discussed the relationship between import trade and energy efficiency to a limited extent,mainly from the perspective of trade liberalization.Therefore,this study supplements the current literature on the relationship between import trade and Chinese energy efficiency and provides empirical evidence for related research of typical developing countries.In addition,considering data availability,urban data is more complete than county-level data and more accurate and detailed than provincial-level data.Therefore,this study takes urban areas as the research object and uses multiple methods to explore the topographical characteristics and absorption capacity of cities from various dimensions,not only expanding the existing literature’s perspective and depth of heterogeneity analysis of urban energy efficiency,but also providing decision-making references for formulating regional energy policies based on local conditions to improve China’s imbalance.Secondly,this paper systematically explores the product diversity,technology spillovers,and import competition mechanisms that affect energy efficiency and clarifies the inherent logic of how import trade promotes energy efficiency improvement.It also expands the classic "ACT" model and enriches the theoretical mechanism of the environment effect of international trade.Based on the classical theoretical analysis of the international trade environment effect,this study analyzes the role of imports in energy efficiency from the aspects of product diversity,technology spillovers,and import competition,forming the research framework of this article.At the same time,based on the actual situation in China,cost-effectiveness and resource allocation efficiency are also taken into consideration,expanding the classic "ACT" model(scale effect,structure effect,and technology effect)and comprehensively interpreting how China’s import trade improves energy efficiency through technological innovation,structural optimization,cost savings,and other channels.This study enriches the theoretical mechanism of the international trade environment effect and deepens the understanding of the inherent relationship between the two.Thirdly,this paper constructs a spatial weight matrix of geographical and economic characteristics from the perspective of geographical location and economic association,and uses static and dynamic spatial Durbin models to reveal the long-term and short-term effects of import trade on surrounding cities.This study expands the evaluation scope of energy efficiency effects of import trade from spatial and temporal dimensions.Only a few studies have explored the spillover effects of import trade on energy efficiency under the spatial weight matrix of geographical features.However,the association between cities does not only depend on the proximity or distance of geographical locations,but is also closely related to socio-economic factors such as economic development between.This study not only establishes a spatial weight matrix based on geographical location,but also constructs an economic-geographical nested matrix based on the economic development of each region,which uses static and dynamic spatial Durbin models to reveal the long-term and short-term effects of import trade on surrounding cities.The findings of this study expand the scope of assessing the role of energy efficiency in import trade in spatial and temporal dimensions,and also provide concrete implementation paths for promoting balanced regional development and building inter-regional joint prevention and control collaboration.