| Since the beginning of the opening up policy, China’s economic development has made remarkable achievements. However, economic development in all regions of our country is not balanced, the differences between the eastern coastal provinces and the Western provinces has not been effectively improved. Greatly improve the underdeveloped provinces economic level, not only can reduce the economic gap between regions, but also can provide a more lasting power for China’s economic growth. While energy consumption as an important support for economic growth, there is a big difference of energy efficiency among the various regions. Greatly improve the efficiency of energy and reduce the gap between various regions, will undoubtedly improve our quality of economic development, and also will help to narrow the economic disparities. At first, this paper studied the convergence of regional economic growth in China, and then joined the influence factor of the energy efficiency. Finally, this paper discusses the relationship between the economic growth convergence and the change of energy efficiency.This paper studied the convergence between different areas and used the σ-convergence model to test the convergence of economic growth in China during 1995-2013. The results show that there are no absolute convergence during this period. Then used the β-convergence model to test our country regional growth. Based on the single section β-convergence model, the results show that the lower the real per capita GDP provinces in 1995, the average growth rate during 1995-2013 economic faster. So, there is a conditional convergence. In the same way, results show that the lower the efficiency of energy in 1995 provinces, the average speed of energy efficiency is faster. Further studies show that if eliminating the influence of the convergence of energy efficiency, economic growth trend of convergence will be reduced, which can prove that the convergence of energy consumption intensity can promote the convergence of economic growth, but this role might not be obvious.Using panel data model to test the convergence of China’s regional economic growth, the results show that there is a conditional convergence during 1995-2013. Further study found that the virtual variable which reflecting the individual differences is not significant in 1995-2013. At different times, research has shown that individual differences in the short term can affect economic growth really. This shows that in the long run, the differences between individuals in the initial stage is not the reason for the regional economic growth differences in a long time. Congenital advantage can’t guarantee that the region’s economic growth always ahead of the other regions.This paper studied the improvement of energy efficiency effects on economic growth and the convergence of economic, and the improvement of economic growth effects on energy efficiency growth and the convergence of energy efficiency. The panel data model based on fixed effects shows that economic growth promoted the convergence of energy efficiency, but weakened the speed of the energy efficiency improving. It shows that the rapid economic growth may mainly caused by the expanded reproduction. Instead, in the period of lower economic growth rate, the rate of energy efficiency is faster. In addition, the relationship between the improvement of energy efficiency and economic growth is not obvious, the same to the economic convergence. This may be the scale of expanded production is not large during the period of the rapid increase of energy efficiency. Thus, the positive effect on economic growth was not fully displayed.Finally, the paper established the elastic relations between the energy intensity change and the economic growth difference, used to test the change of energy efficiency. The results show that the elastic coefficient between the change of energy consumption intensity and the change of real GDP per capita equals 0.26. That is to say, in our country, the real GDP per capita in underdeveloped areas and developed areas of difference between each fell by 1%, both the differences of the intensity of energy consumption will fall by 0.26%. Thus it can be seen that the convergence rate of the energy consumption intensity is slower than the convergence speed of economic growth. |
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