Energy consumption, air quality, and air pollution spatial spillover effects: evidence from the Yangtze River Delta of China

ABSTRACT

Based on analysis of the theoretical impact of energy consumption on air quality, taking 20 heavily polluted cities in the Yangtze River Delta of China as the object, we construct a Spatial Dubin Model, and estimate the effect of energy consumption on air quality and the spatial spillover effects of air pollution. We come to the following conclusions: First, the regional air quality has significant spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity. Second, under three kinds of spatial associated mode, energy consumption has a negative impact on air quality, and the air pollution arising from energy consumption has a negative intra-regional spillover effect. The effect is strongest under the spatial distance weight matrix, followed by the economic distance, and the adjacent spatial weight matrix, which are −0.7926, −0.4547, and −0.4539, respectively. Third, in addition, under the adjacent space and economic distance space matrix, energy consumption has a significant negative effect on air quality, and the inter-regional spillover effects are −0.1513 and −2.5736, respectively. Meanwhile, considering spatial distance and economic development, the inter-regional spillover effect is much larger than is the intra-regional spillover effect. In general, the total spillover effect is at −0.6053 and −3.0284.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy consumption
• air quality
• spatial spillover effect
• Yangtze River Delta

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Statistical Scientific Research Project of China [Grant number. 2016LZ13], the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project of China [Grant number. 16YJAZH015], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant number. 71874185].