Assessing the impact of new energy demonstration city policy on industrial carbon intensity using machine learning

Jianbao Chen, Jiamin Shen and Nan Ke

Economic Analysis and Policy, 2025, vol. 87, issue C, 1690-1707

Abstract: Industrial carbon intensity (ICI) is a key indicator for evaluating carbon dioxide emission reduction efficiency. Given that the industrial sector has historically dominated urban carbon emissions in China, its energy transition constitutes a pivotal pathway for achieving national "dual carbon" objectives. To address this imperative, the Chinese government launched a nationwide New Energy Demonstration City (NEDC) pilot program in 2014. However, its impact on ICI remains unexplored. To fill this gap, utilizing panel data from 274 Chinese cities between 2006 and 2022, we employ dual machine learning models to evaluate NEDC's influence on ICI. Our findings indicate that NEDC significantly reduces ICI, bolstered by various robustness tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that NEDC fosters inventive and improved green technology innovations, and alleviates factor market distortions of capital and labor, leading to reduced ICI. Heterogeneity analysis shows that NEDC exerts a stronger inhibitory effect on ICI in resource-based cities compared to non-resource-based ones. It effectively reduces ICI in non-old industrial base cities and large urban areas, while its impacts are insignificant in old industrial base cities as well as medium & small cities. These findings provide valuable theoretical insights and empirical evidence to guide the strategic advancement of NEDC initiatives and sustainable urban industrial development.

Keywords: New energy demonstration city; Industrial carbon intensity; Dual machine learning model; Green technology innovation; Factor market distortion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592625003108
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:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:1690-1707

DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.07.035

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Analysis and Policy is currently edited by Clevo Wilson

More articles in Economic Analysis and Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().