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Technological innovation is the key to develop wind power and photovoltaic power industries. The feed-in tariff (FIT) policy, as a demand-pull policy, is important to support renewable energy technological innovation. Using the "difference-in-differences" method, this paper investigates the impact of FIT policy of wind power and the impact of the FIT policy designed according to differences in the distribution of resources on wind power technological innovation. The findings show that the FIT policy can drive patenting in wind power technologies during the implementation period, but may play a relatively weak promoting role in technological innovation in the latter term, and the FIT policy designed according to differences in the distribution of resources also stimulates more patent counts. Finally, based on the fixed effect negative binomial regression model, this paper finds that the higher feed-in tariffs can increase the patent counts in photovoltaic power technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expanding the supplies of new energy can not only reduce CO2 emissions, but also alleviate energy shortage. This paper applies the quantile regression to investigate the new energy industry in China. The results show that economic growth exerts the greatest effect on the new energy industry in the lower 10th quantile province. This is because these provinces have the developed economies, demand for a higher ecological environment and new energy resources. Foreign energy dependence has a minimal impact on the new energy industry in the 25th-50th quantile province, due to their minimal oil importation. The contribution of technological progress to the upper 90th quantile province is the lowest, because their R&D capabilities are the weakest. The impact of energy consumption structure decreases in steps from the lower 10th quantile provinces to the upper 90th quantile provinces. The agricultural sector promotes the new energy industry in most provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on input-oriented Malmquist productivity index and parametric decomposition approach, this paper measures China’s green total factor productivity (TFP) index and its growth sources using a panel dataset of 30 provinces of China main-land from 1997 to 2014, and assesses the effect of CO2 intensity regulation on the green TFP growth in China. The results show that the green TFP has been growing at a yearly averaged rate of –1.51% during this period. The results also indicate that the policy of CO2 intensity regulation does not generate significant effect on the green total factor productivity of China’s provinces when using the two stage least squares (2SLS) estimator to control for the potential endogeneity biases. On the other hand, there exists significant heterogeneity in the effect of the CO2 intensity regulation on the green TFP of China’s provinces. Specifically, the CO2 intensity regulation promotes the green development performance of provinces in the eastern area, while it does not generate obvious impacts on the green TFP of provinces in both central and western areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change has caused governments worldwide to take actions to improve their energy efficiency. This paper investigates how China's Top-1000 program, a command-and-control type of energy-saving mandate, has affected the operational choices of firms, and in turn, their profitability. We apply the propensity score matching method to find "identical twins" for the participants in the Top- 1000 program, then conduct a difference-in-differences analysis on the matched sample. Our findings suggest that the profitability of the enterprises targeted for energy savings decreased by one-third, mainly due to increased production costs. The targeted enterprises tended to increase their fixed assets per capita, which was associated with improvements in energy efficiency. Furthermore, compared to similar untargeted enterprises, there was a significant slowdown in the production growths of the targeted enterprises, raising concerns about carbon leakage due to increased production by less efficient producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies have focused on the negative impact of inefficient resource allocation on energy performance in China, but neglected to explore the underlying reason for this phenomenon from the perspective of market segmentation. To fill this research gap, the epsilon-based measure model is used to estimate energy efficiency, and the measurement method of market segmentation is improved in this paper. On the basis of a theoretical hypothesis, we use fractional regression models to conduct empirical research. The results show that market segmentation has a significant negative effect on China’s energy efficiency. Additionally, this inhibitory effect is robust but heterogeneous. The impact mechanism test indicates that energy price distortion, enterprise technology innovation, and industrial ag)glomeration are three intermediate influence channels. Based on these analyses, we suggest that China should accelerate market-oriented reform and eliminate market segmentation in pursuit of energy-saving and emission-abating goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how aspects of national culture may shape the design and implementation of public policy, using the example of energy policy in China. It focuses on cognitive style and on political and legal culture. China’s energy policies display a combination of pragmatism, incrementalism, internal contradiction and ambiguity. This is consistent with evidence from experimental psychology and history that the development of Chinese and East Asian cognitive styles have taken a path distinct from those of Western civilizations with their Greek philosophical heritage. These variations of cognitive style between cultures are reflected in brain function and genes. Policy implementation also bears features from imperial times in the political culture of China’s Communist Party and the contemporary legal system. These arguments reinforce existing calls for caution when seeking to transfer energy or other public policy approaches between countries with different cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the cost-effectiveness of plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) subsidies in reducing tailpipe-CO2 emissions in China, the U.S., and nine European countries. We find that the per-tonne cost of tailpipe-CO2 avoided increases linearly with the government-subsidized percentage of the PEV price. Costs are relatively higher in the Netherlands and Denmark, which subsidized high-priced PEVs including plug-in hybrids, and lower in the U.S., where PEVs replaced higher-emissions cars. Chinese PEV subsidies have a short-run static cost of up to $1,600 per tonne, far exceeding the social cost of carbon, suggesting that subsidies are more a part of China’s industrial policy than its carbon policy. When subsidy-induced PEV sales and power generation emissions are considered, the ordering of countries based on the cost-effectiveness of subsidies changes. The long-run dynamic subsidy cost is expected to be lower, as current subsidies may drive future innovation and sales, and due to grid decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic development under restricted resource availability has become a complex challenge for both developing and well-established economies. To maintain a sustainable electricity supply and mitigate the impact of water shortage on economic development, it is therefore important to understand how utility firms respond to the change in water availability and unpacks the underlying mechanisms of power outage. By pairing plant-level information with the fine-scale grid monthly meteorological data, we find significant plant-level technology substitution in response to water scarcity: a one-standard-deviation decrease in water availability causes an approximate 205 GWh decline per hydro power plant, a 145 GWh increase per nuclear plant, and a 28 GWh increase per coal-fired plant. This water-induced technology substitution takes place within the grid, and we do not identify cross-grid adjustment. Our estimation shows that the technology substitution is associated with a hidden increase in carbon emission up to 32000 tons per year by plant, resulting in an additional cost of 0.18 million USD. Water scarcity slows down the transition towards renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We attempt to investigate how and when foreign direct investment (FDI) impacts different types of environmental pollution in host countries. Using provincial data from China between 1995 and 2015, we find that FDI mitigates air pollution, yet it has insignificant effect on water and solid pollution. We further reveal that it is the combination of the technology, scale and structure effects that jointly determines the impact of FDI on environmental pollution. Among them, the technology effect takes the most dominant role, followed by the scale effect and structure effect. In addition, by considering the time effect on environmental policy change, we suggest that the pollution halo effect mainly occurs after air pollution policy revision. Our findings provide insight on the complex mechanisms and theoretical boundary of FDI on different types of environmental pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effect of human capital on CO2 emissions using the Chinese provincial panel over the period 1997-2016. Allowing for cross-sectional dependence and structural breaks, we find a negative association between human capital and CO2 emissions in the long run and attribute it to the influences from younger workers and workers with advanced human capital. In particular, our results suggest that a one-year increase in average schooling reduces CO2 emissions by 12 per cent. Using disaggregated emission dataset by energy sources and end emitters, we demonstrate this negative association is likely to manifest through technology effect and the improvement in energy efficiency. These manifestations are limited to production sector. Our finding suggests a promising avenue for abating greenhouse gases without impeding economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]