The role of technology on the dynamics of coal consumption–economic growth: New evidence from China

Mita Bhattacharya, Shuddhasattwa Rafiq and Sankar Bhattacharya

Applied Energy, 2015, vol. 154, issue C, 686-695

Abstract: Coal comprises 70% of primary energy sources and 80% of electricity generation in China. This paper investigates the coal consumption–economic growth nexus in an integrated demand–supply framework over the period from 1978 to 2010. We incorporate the role of coal technology to explain the growth process. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag bounds testing approach, we find improvement in the coal-to-electricity efficiency indicator, a proxy for coal technology, causing almost a 35% increase in real GDP in the long run. The Toda–Yamamoto causality test indicates unidirectional causality from coal consumption to economic growth, feedback effects both for coal-to-electricity efficiency indicator to economic growth and coal demand and openness to coal consumption. For a robustness check, we forecast the validity of the causal relationships beyond the sample horizon using the generalised forecast error variance decomposition method. Our analysis suggests that improving overall efficiency in coal sector will continue to play a significant role in maintaining sustainable growth in China in the long run.

Keywords: China; Coal consumption; Coal technology; CO2 intensity; Cointegration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915006960
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:154:y:2015:i:c:p:686-695

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.05.063

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().