Research On The Impact Of Urbanization In China On Regional Energy Efficiency

Energy is necessary for human activities and social development,and it is an indispensable resource for promoting the development of urbanization.In recent years,the large increase in energy consumption brought by the development of urbanization and the intensification of environmental pollution have warned us to accelerate the pace of energy conservation and emission reduction and pay more attention to the impact of urbanization on regional energy efficiency.This article discusses the impact of urbanization on China’s regional energy efficiency from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.It provides a theoretical reference and practical basis for proposing more accurate urbanization policy recommendations and improving China’s regional energy efficiency.First,this article reviews the existing related literature.It mainly sorts out the related effects of urbanization development,and summarizes the related research on energy efficiency influencing factors.Secondly,based on the Solow model,the factor of urbanization is introduced to build a model of urbanization affecting regional energy efficiency.The theoretical research results show that the advancement of urbanization is conducive to the improvement of energy efficiency,and there are regional differences in the impact of urbanization on energy efficiency.Third,the DEA model was used to calculate the energy efficiency values of 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 2008 to 2017.Studies show that in 2008-2017,the level of comprehensive energy technical efficiency has increased by 1.07 times.Then,from the perspective of urbanization,simultaneously introduce three factors of economic structure,consumption structure,and technological progress,establish an empirical model of urbanization affecting energy efficiency,select the urbanization rate as the main explanatory variable,and simultaneously integrate industrial agglomeration,technological progress,industrial structure,the degree of openness to the outside world,the level of per capita income,the ownership structure,and the energy consumption structure as other explanatory variables of the model.Select comprehensive energy technical efficiency,energy pure technical efficiency,and energy scale efficiency as the explanatory variables to construct a spatial panel econometric model,and conduct empirical analysis.It can be seen that urbanization and urbanization have a positive effect on the comprehensive technical efficiency,pure technical efficiency,and scale efficiency of regional energy through industrial agglomeration,industrial structure,and technological progress.At the regional level,energy efficiency is affected by these variables.The situation is different.On the one hand,each 1% increase in the urbanization rate index can directly lead to an increase in the value of comprehensive technical efficiency of energy by 0.459%;on the other hand,urbanization can indirectly improve the comprehensive technical efficiency,Pure technical efficiency and energy scale efficiency of energy through the effects of industrial agglomeration,industrial structure,and technological progress.From a regional point of view,in order of positive impact,they are in the east,central and western regions.Finally,combined with the results of empirical analysis,from the perspective of urbanization,the corresponding policy recommendations such as continuously promoting population urbanization,accelerating urban industrial agglomeration,optimizing urban industrial structure,and improving the level of regional technological progress are proposed to improve the quality of urbanization,thereby promoting China’s regional energy effectiveness.