School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha, 410079, PR China.
School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha, 410079, PR China.
J Environ Manage. 2020 Apr 15;260:110041. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.110041. Epub 2020 Jan 21.
China is currently the world's largest energy consumer and, at the same time, a huge trading power. With the increasing complexity of production processes along global value chains (GVCs), it is of great significance to study the impact of GVC participation on energy intensity. By using production length to measure GVC participation, this study first calculates China's manufacturing industry's total average production length of GVC activities and its three segments: length of pure domestic production, length of traditional trade production, and production length of GVC activities. Next, this study explains the influence mechanisms of GVC participation on energy intensity, proposes three research hypotheses, and conducts econometric analyses to examine the influence of production length and its three segments on energy intensity for a sample of China's manufacturing sector from 2000 to 2014. The results indicate that the total average production length of GVC activities significantly affects energy intensity and presents an inverted U-shaped, non-linear relationship wherein China has passed the critical point. The interactions between the three segments of production length and energy intensity also present an inverted U-shaped, non-linear relationship, where the impacts of the pure domestic segment and the "traditional" trade related segment on energy intensity have passed the critical point, while that of the segment related to GVC production has not yet crossed the critical point. It is suggested that further promoting China's manufacturing industry towards the mid-to-high end of the GVCs and breaking through its captive and "squeezed" position in the GVCs could significantly contribute toward curtailing energy intensity.
中国目前是世界上最大的能源消费国，同时也是一个巨大的贸易大国。随着全球价值链（GVC）生产流程的日益复杂化，研究 GVC 参与度对能源强度的影响具有重要意义。本研究采用生产长度来衡量 GVC 参与度，首先计算了中国制造业 GVC 活动的总平均生产长度及其三个部分：纯国内生产长度、传统贸易生产长度和 GVC 活动生产长度。接着，本文解释了 GVC 参与度对能源强度的影响机制，提出了三个研究假设，并利用中国制造业 2000-2014 年的样本进行了计量经济学分析，检验了生产长度及其三个部分对能源强度的影响。结果表明，GVC 活动总平均生产长度对能源强度有显著影响，呈现出倒 U 型非线性关系，中国已经超过了临界点。生产长度的三个部分与能源强度之间的相互作用也呈现出倒 U 型非线性关系，其中纯国内部分和“传统”贸易相关部分对能源强度的影响已经超过了临界点，而与 GVC 生产相关的部分尚未达到临界点。因此，进一步推动中国制造业向 GVC 的中高端发展，并突破其在 GVC 中的被束缚和“挤压”地位，将对降低能源强度有显著贡献。
