Energy intensity and foreign direct investment: A Chinese city-level studyRobert Elliott (), Puyang Sun () and Siyang Chen Energy Economics, 2013, vol. 40, issue C, 484-494 Abstract: In this paper we investigate the relationship between the energy intensity of Chinese cities and the location of foreign firms employing a unique dataset of 206 of the largest prefecture-level cities between 2005 and 2008. Our results reveal a non linear inverted-U shaped relationship between energy intensity and city-level per capita income with the majority of cities on the downward slope of the curve. We also find evidence of a significant and negative relationship between the foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into a city and energy intensity. However, this effect varies by geographic location reflecting differences in the ability of regions to absorb and benefit from environmental spillovers. The relatively small economic effect of FDI can in part explained by the propensity for foreign firms to invest in energy intensive sectors coupled with the trend for China to invest heavily in capital intensive industries. Keywords: Energy efficiency; Economic growth; Foreign direct investment (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:eneeco:v:40:y:2013:i:c:p:484-494 DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2013.08.004 Access Statistics for this article Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant More articles in Energy 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.