Energy rebound effect in China’s manufacturing sector: Fresh evidence from firm-level data

Zicheng ZHOU, Luojia WANG, Kerui DU, Shuai SHAO

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Front. Eng ›› 2022, Vol. 9 ›› Issue (3) : 439-451. DOI: 10.1007/s42524-022-0210-8
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Energy rebound effect in China’s manufacturing sector: Fresh evidence from firm-level data

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Abstract

The rebound effect refers to the phenomenon that individuals tend to consume more energy in the face of energy efficiency improvement, which reduces the expected energy-saving effect. Previous empirical studies on the rebound effect of regions and sectors do not provide microscopic evidence. To fill this gap, we use China’s firm-level data to estimate the rebound effect in China’s manufacturing subsectors, providing a detailed picture of China’s rebound effect across different sectors and different regions in 2001–2008. Results show that a partial rebound effect robustly appears in all industries, and the disparity between sectors is quite broad, ranging from 43.2% to 96.8%. As for the dynamic rebound effect of subsectors, most subsectors present an upward trend, whereas few subsectors show a clear downward trend. As a whole, the declined trend of the rebound effect is driven by the descent of minority sectors with high energy consumption and high energy-saving potential. In addition, we find that the disparity of the rebound effect across sectors is more significant than that across regions.

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Keywords

energy rebound effect / energy efficiency / manufacturing sector / firm-level data / China

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Zicheng ZHOU, Luojia WANG, Kerui DU, Shuai SHAO. Energy rebound effect in China’s manufacturing sector: Fresh evidence from firm-level data. Front. Eng, 2022, 9(3): 439‒451 https://doi.org/10.1007/s42524-022-0210-8

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