Does the Urban Agglomeration Policy Reduce Energy Intensity? Evidence from China

Abstract

With the expansion of the scale of China’s economy and the acceleration of urbanization, energy consumption is increasing, and environmental degradation and other problems have arisen. In order to solve such prominent problems, China proposed the “carbon peak” and “carbon neutral” targets in 2020. Although there are research conclusions about the impact of urbanization on energy intensity (EI), conclusions about the impact of the urban agglomeration policy (UAP) on EI are still unclear. Therefore, the article studies the impact of the urban agglomeration policy on EI in 279 prefecture-level cities by constructing a Difference-In-Differences (DID) model and mediating effect model. The results show that UAP has a significant effect on reducing EI, but their effects are different with the impact of urban heterogeneity, and the urban agglomeration policy of “Core” cities is less effective than those of “Edge” cities. From the perspective of the influencing mechanism, UAP takes green innovation capability as the intermediary variable to influence EI. The placebo test, PSM-DID regression, counterfactual test, and instrumental variable method all reflect the robustness of the research conclusions. Based on this, the paper puts forward some suggestions for urban agglomeration planning and green technology innovation.

A Causal Relationship between the New-Type Urbanization and Energy Consumption in China: A Panel VAR Approach

“…As shown in Table 3, in the EC equation, the first-period lag of EC has a significant positive effect on EC, and the second-period lag of EC has a significant negative effect on EC, which indicates that energy consumption presents the characteristics of path-dependent inertia in the short run, yet it tends to converge in the long run [4,47]. The first-period lag of NU has a significant negative effect on EC and the second-period lag of NU has a significant positive effect on EC, which indicates that new-type urbanization leads to energy consumption negatively in the short run [10][11][12][13][14][15][16], yet the new-type urbanization leads to energy consumption positively in the long run [6][7][8][9]. In the NU equation, the first-period lag of NU has a significant positive effect on NU, and the second-period lag of NU does not have any significant effect on NU, which indicates that new-type urbanization also presents the characteristics of path-dependent inertia in the short run.…”

“…Many scholars found that the urbanization process leads to energy consumption growth [6][7][8][9]. In contrast, some scholars argued that urbanization may lead to energy consumption negatively [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Based on Northam [17], the third strand of research further examined the nonlinear relationship between the two due to the mixed findings.…”