Impact of environmental investment and resource endowment on regional energy efficiency: evidence from the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China.

As a key economic resource, energy plays an important and strategic role in the national economy. Conserving energy and improving energy efficiency are of great significance to the sustainable economic development of a country. Based on provincial panel data from 2006 to 2017 in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), this article set up two econometric models and applied the panel regression analysis techniques to examine the impact of environmental investment and resource endowment on energy efficiency, and the combined impact of environmental investment and resource endowment on energy efficiency, and tested fixed effects and random effects to obtain detailed and specific results. The results of the study are as follows: (1) resource endowment is significantly and negatively correlated with energy efficiency, and there exists a resource curse in terms of energy efficiency in YREB. (2) Current environmental investment has a catalytic effect on energy efficiency, and lagged environmental investment has a greater effect on energy efficiency improvement than current environmental investment. (3) Environmental investment can effectively reduce the negative impact of resource endowment on energy efficiency. The results of the study will help improve YREB's energy efficiency and promote the coordinated development of economic development and resource conservation and environmental protection.