Energy Efficiency, Policy and GTFP

Abstract

The environmental and resource constraints on economic growth are increasingly evident. China urgently needs to reshape its economic growth momentum. The increase in green total factor productivity is particularly necessary for the growth of the quantity and quality of the economy. This paper selects the provincial panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2001 to 2015, and establishes a panel exchangeable errors model to analyze the impact of eight indicators on green total factor productivity (GTFP) and verifies its effectiveness. Empirical analysis shows that inter-provincial government competition, environmental regulation, energy consumption, and capital stock have a significant impact on green total factor productivity. The influence of foreign direct investment, industrial structure, and industrialization level on the total factor productivity of green is not significant. Therefore, the government should adopt suitable, flexible and diverse environmental regulation policies, promote energy-saving emission reduction and technology innovations through policies such as taxes and subsidies, strengthen the linkage mechanism between industrial structure upgrading and energy efficiency, to increase green total factor productivity.