Electricity consumption, Education Expenditure and Economic Growth in Chinese Cities

Zheng Fang and Yang Chen

No 2017-02, RIEI Working Papers from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Research Institute for Economic Integration

Abstract: We examine the city-level cointegrating and Granger causal relationships between economic growth, electricity consumption and human capital during a period of 2003-2012 in China. Applying the Continuously-updated fully modified OLS panel estimation, we find that for China as a whole physical and human capital have similar positive impacts on local economic growth, which are slightly larger than the effect of electricity consumption. A 1% rise in either physical or human capital investment boosts economic growth by 0.07% and the output elasticity of electricity consumption is 0.06. Comparatively, electricity consumption plays a dominant role to boost economic growth in the Center, human capital contributes most to growth in the East, and growth in the West benefits most from physical capital investments. Using a Granger causality test that is suitable for heterogeneous panels, we find a uni-directional causal relationship running from economic growth to electricity consumption in central and western China and a feedback effect in eastern China. In terms of the causal relationship between electricity consumption and education expenditure, electricity Granger causes education expenditure in some eastern Chinese cities and a reverse relationship is observed for cities in Middle China, while for western cities a bi-directional causal link is found. Local policies should therefore vary and be coordinated across government agencies.

Keywords: Electricity consumption; education expenditure; heterogeneous panel causality; Chinese cities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2017-05-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dcm, nep-ene, nep-sea, nep-tra and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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