Technology elasticity and potential on energy saving and emission reduction: evidence from China

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the elasticity of different technology choices to energy efficiency and chemical oxygen demand/ammonia nitrogen emission reducing efficiency among 38 industries in China from 2008 to 2011. With data envelopment analysis, total-factor productivity growth, the common measure of technical progress, is divided into different parts: technical efficiency relative to the frontier, technology change and scale efficiency, which are regarded as three different choices of technological progress. For various industries, technology elasticity is quite different and the importance of different technical choices is diverse in the improvement of efficiency on energy saving and emission reduction. Policymakers could focus on the elasticity of different technical progress choices in various industries to improve energy and emission reduction efficiency.

KEYWORDS:

• Technology elasticity
• energy saving
• COD emission reduction
• AN emission reduction

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Q48
• O10

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [15CJY009].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [15CJY009].