中国能源消费和电力消费的环境库兹涅茨曲线:基于面板数据空间计量模型的分析

The Environmental Kuznets Curve for China's Per Capita Energy Consumption and Electricity Consumption:an Empirical Estimation on the Basis of Spatial Econometric Analysis

传统的环境库兹涅茨曲线(EKC)实证研究选取多种环境污染物作为研究对象以及忽略空间自相关问题,往往造成测算结果不稳定。本文选取中国省级人均能源消费量和人均电力消费量作为环境压力的代理指标,在充分考虑空间效应和严格假设检验的基础上选择合适的空间计量经济学模型对EKC进行实证研究。结果表明,我国经济增长与人均能源/电力消费之间确实存在较强的空间相关性,且人均能源/电力消费与人均GDP间存在"倒N型"的EKC关系。在人均能源消费量与人均电力消费量达到峰值时,其所对应的人均GDP(1978年不变价)分别为20000元与23000元左右。与不考虑空间相关性的传统计量模型估计结果相比,本研究得到的人均能源/电力消费EKC峰值所对应的人均GDP较低,说明忽略能源/电力消费的空间自相关性的存在会使得中国的能源需求及环境污染峰值对应的人均GDP产生向上的偏误。

The existing researches about Environmental Kuznets Curve （EKC）are not steady. Two important reasons that cause the instability are 1 ） various pollutants are chosen as dependent variables in the EKC related regressions and 2） the spatial autocorrelation was generally ignored in previous studies. In this paper, the Chinese provincial per capita energy consumption and per capita electricity consumption are chosen as two proxies for China＇s environmental pressure. The most appropriate spatial econometric models are employed based on strict hypothesis tests to estimate the EKC. The esti- mation results indicate that the spatial dependence indeed exists between China economic growth and per capita energy/ electricity consumption, and the energy/electricity EKC curves are inverted-N shaped. When the per capita energy and e-lectricity consumption peaks, the corresponding levels of per capita GDP （ 1978 constant price） are approximately 20000 yuan and 23000 yuan, respectively. Compared with the estimation results when spatial dependence is not considered, the per capita GDP corresponding to the estimated peak of the EKC in this study appears to be lower,implying that the tradi- tional approaches tend to make upward bias when the spatial correlation was ignored.