The Impact Of Economic Policy Uncertainty On Regional Total Factor Energy Efficiency

With the proposal of peaking carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality goals,the improvement of energy efficiency has gradually become the focus of China’s energy problems.As a major energy consumer,energy is an essential input factor in the process of China’s economic growth.The improvement of energy efficiency is also an important means to promote the transformation of economic growth mode from extensive pattern to intensive pattern,and from high-speed growth to high-quality development.However,in recent years,the macro-economic development environment is not optimistic,various black swan events occur frequently,global economic policy uncertainty is rising,and the downward pressure on economic growth in various countries is gradually increasing.In this case,as an important way to achieve peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality goals and an important pillar of economic growth,will energy efficiency also be affected by economic policy uncertainty(EPU)? And what is the mechanism of it? In this regard,this paper has carried out research around the following aspects.First of all,based on the theory of real option and government intervention,this paper analyzes the theoretical path of the impact of EPU on energy efficiency through the energy market mechanism and the government intervention mechanism from the perspective of market and government,the two main bodies of resource allocation.Secondly,this paper uses single factor index and SBM-Undesirable index to measure and compare the energy efficiency of 285 prefecture-level cities in China at the static level from 2003 to 2017,and uses Malmquist index and Malmquist-Luenberger index to measure the growth rate of regional total factor energy efficiency from the dynamic level.Then,in the empirical analysis stage,based on the EPU of China obtained by Davis et al.,this paper estimates the impact of EPU on energy efficiency by using the fixed effect model.The regression analysis shows that EPU will have a negative impact on regional total factor energy efficiency.For every unit increase in EPU,the regional total factor energy productivity will decrease by 5.7%.At the same time,this effect is heterogeneous for resource-based cities of different development stages and different dominant resources.Furthermore,this paper verifies the rationality of the theoretical mechanism based on the mediating effect model.In terms of energy market mechanism,economic policy uncertainty will affect energy efficiency through the path of "energy price-energy consumption structure".Every unit of the proportion of oil in energy consumption decreases will lead to a 10% decline in regional total factor energy efficiency.In terms of government intervention mechanism,regression results show that for every unit of government intervention increases,regional total factor energy efficiency will decrease by 32.6%.Finally,this paper proposes policy recommendations from multiple perspectives,such as optimizing urban energy consumption structure,standardizing the government investment field and changing the economic development mode of resource-based cities,so as to deal with the negative impact of EPU on regional total factor energy efficiency,improve the energy utilization efficiency of Chinese cities,and promote the high-quality development of energy field.At the same time,it is also expected to provide experience and reference of energy efficiency improvement issues for other developing countries.