Research On The Influence Factors Of China's Energy Biased Technical Change

During the rapid economic growth,as well as the process of China's green economic growth,China always has to deal with two key issues,including environmental pollution and the rise of external dependence of energy.Therefore,the government still speed up the pace of industrial structure adjustment and intensify the implementation of innovation-driven development,even when there is a sharp slowdown in China's economic growth.On the one hand,it can optimize the industrial structure continuously.On the other hand,it also can increase China's R&D investment.Slower economic growth will reduce energy demand of China,and the optimization of industrial structure and the increase of R&D investment will undoubtedly promote China's energy efficiency.Combing the decline of energy demand with the enhancement of energy efficiency,the problem of environmental pollution and energy security will be solved effectively.However,these two problems are getting worse.Why?What is the mechanism of these anomalies?What should China do to deal with these two problems?Based on this,this study combs the classical literature and frontier literature,and combines the energy with the theory of biased technical change to construct the theoretical model of China's energy biased technical change,then this study theoretically analyses the influence factors of China's energy biased technical change and empirically tests the theoretical results at all levels.Finally,based on the theoretical research and empirical analysis,this study provides policy advices about how to improve the level of renewable energy technology.The main contents of this study include five aspects:Firstly,this study constructs a theoretical model of China's energy biased technical change,and theoretically analyses the influence factors of China's energy biased technical change.The energy includes 'dirty energy' and 'clean energy',the consumption of 'dirty energy' will cause pollution,however the consumption of'clean energy' will not.The energy technologies include 'dirty energy technologies' and 'clean energy technologies'.Based on this,this study constructs a theoretical model of China's energy biased technical change.The theoretical research shows that China's energy biased technical change is affected by four aspects:price effect,market size effect,productivity effect and technology spillover effect.When China's energy technical change biased to dirty energy technology,the government can change China's energy biased technical change by policy intervention.Secondly,this study empirically analyses the influence factors of China's energy biased technical change through the Ridge Regression.Based on the above theoretical results,the 'dirty energy' and 'clean energy' are measured by fossil energy and renewable energy respectively,and the 'dirty energy technologies' and 'clean energy technologies' are measured by fossil energy technology and renewable energy technology respectively,then this study empirically analyses the influence factors of China's energy biased technical change by using the national data during 1995 to 2014.Thirdly,this study empirically analyses the influencing factors of regional energy biased technical change through the generalized least squares.Considering the significant differences in the regional economic growth,industrial structure,energy consumption,energy consumption structure and energy endowment,this study further empirically analyses the influencing factors of energy biased technical change at the regional level by using the cross-province panel data during 2003 to 2014.Fourthly,this study empirically analyses the influencing factors of energy biased technical change at enterprise level through the Zero-Inflation Poisson model.For enterprises,in addition to the influencing factors which have been mentioned at the national level and the regional level,financing constraints is also important,because the R&D needs financial support.This study further empirically analyses the influencing factors of energy biased technical change at enterprise level by using the cross-enterprises panel data during 2003 to 2014.Fifthly,this study offers some policy recommendations about how to upgrade the level of renewable energy technology,how to solve the problem of environmental pollution and how to ensure energy security,these policy recommendations can be useful for China's green economic growth.The main results are listed as follows:Firstly,there is much path dependency in China's energy biased technical change,and the degree of path dependence is higher when the energy technical change biased to the fossil energy technology.It is said that when the stock of fossil energy technology is increasing,the energy technical change will biased to the fossil energy technology.Equally,when the stock of renewable energy technology is increasing,the energy technical change will biased to the renewable energy technology.Secondly,the energy technology spillover has a significant effect on China's energy biased technical change at all levels.but the effect is different from the regional level and the enterprise level.It is said that when the stock of fossil energy technology spillover is increasing,the energy technical change will biased to the fossil energy technology.Equally,when the stock of renewable energy technology spillover is increasing,the energy technical change will biased to the renewable energy technology.At the regional level,the effect of the stock of fossil energy technology spillover is greater.However,at the enterprise level,the effect of the stock of renewable energy technology spillover is greater.Thirdly,the increase of price of fossil energy can effectively change the regional energy biased technical change,but it can't change energy biased technical change at national level and enterprise level.When the price of fossil energy rises,the enterprise will engage in the research and development of renewable energy technology.However,after the enterprise begins to do that,the increase of the price of fossil energy will inhibit the research and development of renewable energy technology.All things considered,the increase of the price of fossil energy will go against the research and development of renewable energy technology.Fourthly,the intensification of financing constraints will make the energy technical change biased to the fossil energy technology,and the effect of the intensification of external financing constraints is bigger than the effect of the intensification of inner financing constraints.When the financing constraints became severer,the research and development of fossil energy technology and renewable energy technology will be inhibited,but the extent of inhibition is higher in the research and development of renewable energy technology.Fifthly,the policy support for renewable energy can effectively change China's energy biased technical change at the national level and the regional level,making the energy technical change biased to renewable energy technology at the national level and the regional level.However,if the enterprise that engage in the research and development of renewable energy technology can receive the direct subsidy from the government,its research and development will be inhibited,and the enterprise's energy technical change will biased to the fossil energy technology.Sixthly,the environmental regulation can't change the regional energy biased technical change,and it will inhibit the enterprise's renewable energy technical change through intensifying the enterprise's inner financing constraints,making the energy technical change biased to fossil energy technology.The enhancement of environmental regulation will make the energy technical change biased to fossil energy technology.What's more,although the enhancement of environmental regulation will encourage the enterprise's renewable energy technical change directly,it also will inhibit the enterprise's renewable energy technical change through intensifying the enterprise's inner financing constraints.Overall,the enhancement of environmental regulation will inhibit the enterprise's renewable energy technical change.On the basis of the theoretical research and empirical analysis,this study provides the policy recommendations to upgrade the level of renewable energy technology by making renewable energy technology bias the energy technical change.Firstly,the central government and local governments should further strengthen the policy support for the research and development of renewable energy technology distinguishingly,according to the renewable energy reserves.Secondly,China can absorb the renewable energy technology spillover from the country whose level of renewable energy technology is higher than China by absorbing the direct investment of these countries and strengthening the import and export trade with these countries.Thirdly,the government can adjust the energy price by energy tax to speed up the marketization of China's fossil energy price.Fourthly,China can provide financial support for the enterprise that engage in research and development of renewable energy technology by speeding up the development of multi-level capital market.Fifthly.the government can enlarge the market size of the enterprise that engage in the research and development of renewable energy technology through government procurement,instead of direct subsidy.Compared with the previous studies,this study has three differences:Firstly,this study perfects the micro foundation of the theory of biased technical change by bring the technology spillover effect into the theory of biased technical change.Secondly,this study broadens the analytical framework of biased technical change by the combination of energy with the theory of biased technical change.Thirdly,this study analysis the influence factors of China's energy biased technical change by empirically analyzing the theory of energy biased technical change at enterprise level.