اثرات کوتاه مدت و بلند مدت بین مصرف نفت و رشد اقتصادی در چین

This paper examines both the equilibrium relationship and the predictability between oil consumption and economic growth in China. Time series variables are employed in empirical tests. Cointegration tests suggest that these two variables tend to move together in the long run. In addition, Granger causality tests indicate that oil consumption could be a useful factor that forecasts changes in the economy in the short run as well as in the long run. The oil consumption is found to have great effects on the economy. This is because the enormous use of oil in sectors like the industry may have directly pushed the economy. However, this finding would probably stimulate faster growth in oil consumption and so should be concerned with care. Conversely, economic growth could be used as a predictive factor forecasting oil consumption only in the long run. Economic growth appears to have small effects on oil use; this could be attributed largely to China's energy consumption structure. Coal constitutes most of the energy consumption and thus the considerable demand for energy resulting from rapid economic growth could be mostly explained by the mass use of coal.

China initiated its reform and open-door policy to the outside world in 1979. The economy has since then experienced fast growth, with growth rates averaging around 8 percent over the past two decades (Table 1); and China's economic size has expanded substantially as well. Meanwhile, oil consumption has grown rapidly; it has for instance increased at an annual average rate of 5.77 percent in recent years (He, 2003). China has presently acted as the world's second largest oil consumer after the United States. On average China's oil consumption accounts for 17–24 percent of its total primary energy use (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2004). In addition, oil use has far outpaced oil supply and thereby leading to rapidly increasing net oil imports. In 1993, China became a net oil importer and up to now its oil imports have ranked third after the United States and Japan in the world. In 2003, China imported 128.3 million tons of oil (making up nearly 46 percent of domestic oil consumption), of which 91.1 million is crude oil. In 2004, China imported 120 million tons of crude oil (General Administration of Customs of China, 2005).

While Chinese economy quickly expanded, its oil consumption has since the 1980s grown rapidly. Thus, the interaction between oil consumption and economic growth is deserved to be examined. We first performed the unit root tests for oil consumption and GDP time series variables over the periods 1953–2002, 1953–1984 and 1985–2002, respectively. The structural break in the data has not been suggested. Both of these two variables appeared to be I(1). The long-run equilibrium relationships between oil consumption and economic growth are suggested when the cointegration tests were performed for the subperiod 1953–1984 and for the subperiod 1985–2002, respectively. However, we have focused on the discussion of the empirical results for the period 1985–2002, as China has begun practice of the market-oriented economy since 1985. Regarding the mutual effects between oil consumption and economic growth, economic growth could be used as a long-run factor predicting oil consumption, but not in the short run. Changes in the economy have appeared to have small effects on changes in oil use. This may be attributed largely to China's energy consumption structure. Coal constitutes most of China's total energy and thus the demand for energy resulting from economic growth could be mostly explained by the mass use of coal. In comparison, the increased consumption of oil resulting from the economic progress is small. On the contrary, oil consumption could be thought of as a leading factor of the economy in the short run as well as in the long run. The basic reason for this may be that the enormous use of oil mostly in the industry sector has directly pushed the economy. In addition, oil consumption has great effects on the economy. However, this finding may lead to the tendency of more consumption of oil. This should be concerned with great care, as the quickly increasing oil imports have been a heavy burden on China.