Energy efficiency convergence across countries in the context of China’s Belt and Road initiative

Abstract

After China launched its "Belt and Road" (BR) initiative, the international community became concerned that it may worsen the environmental performance of the BR countries. Due to a lack of data for empirical testing, this paper addresses this concern through an indirect method and draws the implications of the potential impacts of China's BR initiative. This method empirically examines the effects of trade integration and regional cooperation, two major functions of the BR initiative, on energy efficiency (EE) convergence, a concept that describes the catching up process of EE across countries. A sample of 89 countries was selected to analyse the process of EE convergence from 2000 to 2014. The results indicate that although the gaps in EE among countries around the world become larger after 2010, regional cooperation may lead to a convergence process. It also finds that trade integration has a positive influence on convergence across the countries, especially among middle-and low-income countries. The results suggest that the BR initiative, through its roles in trade integration and regional cooperation, may promote EE convergence among countries. This is a desirable environmental outcome. This research also provides policy implications for both China and the other BR countries.

Dynamic Assessment of Environmental Efficiency in Chinese Industry: A Multiple DEA Model with a Gini Criterion Approach

“…Thus, to improve the quality of the industrial environment, two directions of endeavours can be taken: One is to improve the energy use efficiency of the traditional light industry, which is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises, by increasing the government's technical support, encouraging enterprises to develop new products and technologies on their own, and merging enterprises of the same type or bundling them in the industrial parks to achieve common improvement in energy efficiency between enterprises. The other is to change the growth mode of the traditional heavy chemical industry, strengthen the depth of opening, introduce advanced technologies of clean production and environmental management, grasp the strategic opportunity of the Belt and Road, and promote energy efficiency through trade integration and regional cooperation [51].…”

A Microeconomic Methodology to Evaluate Energy Efficiency by Consumption Behaviors and Strategies to Improve Energy Efficiency

“…Reducing energy demands are not only the developing energy efficiency technologies but also changing behaviors. Based on analysis of trade integration and regional cooperation in 89 countries in China's One Belt and One Road region, Han et al found trade integration and regional cooperation can promote energy efficiency [25]. Meanwhile, Aste et al analyzed the effects of policies that installation of renewable energy sources on consumption behaviors and energy efficiency in Lombardy Region in Italy [26].…”

Has the Belt and Road Initiative Brought New Opportunities to Countries Along the Routes to Participate in Global Value Chains?

“…As a significant and noteworthy matter of academics, policy executors and makers, there is a body of literature focusing on the impact of BRI. Many researchers proposed that the international cooperation of BRI in different fields has emerged and increased significantly, such as energy (Han et al, 2018;Sarker et al, 2018;Xu et al, 2017;Yuan et al, 2018Yuan et al, , 2019Zhang et al, 2019), environment (Ascensão et al, 2018;X. Cai et al, 2018;Dong et al, 2015Dong et al, , 2017Saud et al, 2019;Solmecke, 2017), infrastructure (He, 2016;Y.…”