Study On Convergence Of Regional Economic Growth And Energy Consumption Intensity

There exists an obvious imbalance in economic development between eastern and western China. To revitalize the western economy, China put forward the strategy of Western Campaign in 1999. After 15 years’ development, has the economic gap between the west and the east got converged? Does the western economy development relies more on higher energy consumption or not?According to the theory that the Regional economic growth and energy consumption intensity difference, first of al, the provinces of the country’s per capita GDP data in China from1999 to 2012. 30 provinces were divided into western and eastern as the study areas. If western economic growth relies more on high energy consumption, the faster the economic grows, the narrower the energy consumption gap get between the east and the west. Then we can say that the energy efficiency is lower and the energy consumption intensity got greater. On the other hand, if western economic growth relies more on energy saving sustainable development, the faster the economic grows, the higher the energy efficiency is.In this article, we assume that the energy consumption intensity difference between western and eastern is a function of GDP per capita differences of western and eastern regions. And then, we conduct theory analysis and empirical estimates by using the panel data econometric model to get the relations between the two variables. According to the result of this article, China’s GDP per capita is still divergence between the west and the east. From perspective of the overall, the energy consumption difference intensity becomes smal er. But from perspective of the different western provinces respectively, part of province’s energy efficiency is lower than the eastern region and part of their efficiency is higher than the eastern region.Therefore, to deepen the western development strategy is extremely necessary. At the same time, we encourage various areas to make full use of energy and energy efficiency differences. Pay attention to the improvement of energy efficiency, and keep on sustainable energy saving growth and regional balanced path.