Research On The Direct Rebound Effect Of Energy Consumption In China’s Manufacturing

With the rapid development of economy, the contradiction between the excessive demand and shortage of energy is becoming increasingly clear, as well as the greenhouse gas emissions. These issues have a pernicious influence on the environment, and restrict the further development of the economy. It is obvious that some effective measures must be taken to reduce energy consumption and pollution emissions. Energy efficiency improvement was put forward to cope with these issues in such a serious situation, and it helped reduce the marginal cost of energy. However, it also brought a new problem---Rebound effect. Essentially, rebound effect is the relationship between energy efficiency and energy consumption. In details, the improvement of energy efficiency leads to a reduction in energy price, so consumers are able to purchase the same energy product with a lower price, thus they tends to get more energy product. Because of the rebound effect, some benefits brought by the energy efficiency improvement will partly offset,contrary to the original intention of the reform of energy efficiency, and may even stimulate more energy consumption. Based on the domestic and foreign scholars research results, we analyzed the influence mechanism of manufacturing rebound effect, and calculated China’s manufacturing industry energy efficiency during 1987-2012, thus put forward countermeasures and suggestions on the manufacturing sector, so as to provide some theoretical guidance for the development of energy policy of China’s manufacturing industry.This paper focuses on the following aspects:First of all, we are taking a comprehensive review on the energy rebound effect research trends in domestic and abroad. Through the literature review, we found that researches on energy rebound effect in foreign countries started earlier and were relatively mature, while the domestic related researches were still in the initial stage, and being lack of relevant theoretical researches and empirical researches, there are still some limitations in the depth of the study and breadth.Secondly, we are making a theoretical analysis of the mechanism of the energy rebound effect in China, including analysis of influencing factors of energy efficiency, and the effect on the impact of energy consumption, laying the theoretical foundation of this article.Thirdly, on the basis of theoretical analysis, applying the DEA method and the generalized difference method to measure energy efficiency of the manufacturing industry,using the method of Cobb Douglas production function and ridge regression to estimate the direct rebound effect of energy consumption in manufacturing in china.Finally, combined with the results of empirical analysis, and putting forward some countermeasures and suggestions of China’s manufacturing industry to weaken the rebound effect.The main innovation of this paper are: analyzing the effect of energy efficiency on energy consumption from the perspective of the mechanism manufacturing industry caused by technological progress, and applying the DEA method and the generalized difference method to calculate the energy efficiency of manufacturing industry, using the method of ridge regression to estimate the direct rebound effect of energy consumption in manufacturing value. Based on the empirical analysis, we put forward some countermeasures and suggestions of China’s manufacturing industry to weaken the rebound effect.