 Is economic rebalancing toward consumption “greener”? Evidence from visibility in China, 1984–2006Zhigang Li (), Jia Yuan, Frank Song and Shang-Jin Wei Journal of Comparative Economics, 2014, vol. 42, issue 4, 1021-1032 Abstract: The Chinese government has adopted a rebalancing strategy since 2011, shifting from an investment- to consumption-oriented growth model. An aim of this reform is for a “greener” development mode, but relevant empirical evidence is slim. In this study, we propose an innovative methodology to shed light on the environmental externalities of economic rebalancing. First, we use air visibility across China to reflect air quality during 1984–2006. Second, with the daily visibility data, we propose a weekend-effect regression model to difference out city-specific unobserved heterogeneity. Third, we approximate local consumption intensity with the portion of the residential electricity usage in the total electricity usage. To our surprise, the estimates suggest that the pollution intensity of consumption activities has not only been significant, but also exceeded that of production since the mid-1990s. Hence, rebalancing toward consumption is not necessarily more environmentally friendly according to the recent development experience of China. Keywords: Rebalancing; Environment; China (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcecon:v:42:y:2014:i:4:p:1021-1032 DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2014.06.003 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Comparative Economics is currently edited by D. Berkowitz and G. Roland More articles in Journal of Comparative Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.