لینک های پویا بین مصرف انرژی، رشد اقتصادی، توسعه مالی و تجارت در چین: شواهد تازه از تحلیل چارچوب چند متغیره

This study investigates the relationship between energy use and economic growth by incorporating financial development, international trade and capital as important factors of production function in case of China over the period of 1971–2011. The ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration was applied to examine long run relationship among the series while stationarity properties of the variables was tested by applying structural break test. Our empirical evidence confirmed long run relationship among the variables. The results showed that energy use, financial development, capital, exports, imports and international trade have positive impact on economic growth. The Granger causality analysis revealed that unidirectional causal relationship running from energy use to economic growth. Financial development and energy use Granger cause each other. There is bidirectional causality between international trade and energy use. The feedback relation exists between financial development and international trade. There is also bidirectional causality exists between capital and energy demand, financial development and economic growth and, international trade and economic growth. This paper makes significant contribution in energy economics and opens up new direction for policy makers to explore new and alternative sources of energy which would be helpful in meeting the rising demand of energy due to sustained rate of economic growth.

The relationship between output and energy use has drawn much research interest in recent years perhaps due to increased awareness of greenhouse gas emission (GHG) and its impact on sustainable environment. Despite the emergence of a bourgeoning literature on the topic, consensus remains elusive because results are often based on ad hoc approach compounded by omitted variables bias (see Akarca and Long, 1980, Yu and Hwang, 1984 and Yu and Jin, 1992). It is against this backdrop that more recent studies have adopted multivariate approach by including capital and labor, inter alia (Shahbaz et al., 2012, Stern, 1993 and Stern, 2000). The emerging and developing economies have been experiencing remarkable rates of growth in international trade with a concomitant increase in energy use, raising the specter of gloomy future of GHG. This has raised interest in the underlying dynamics between energy demand and GDP (see Ozturk, 2010); and between international trade and economic growth (see Cuadros et al., 2004, Dritsaki et al., 2004 and Giles and Williams, 2000). Knowledge of the relation is important to policy makers for several reasons. If energy use Granger causes output, energy conservation, unrelated to technological change, can have adverse impact on the former (Karanfil, 2009). If energy use Granger causes exports/imports, any reduction in energy use due to say, energy conservation polices may lower potential benefits from trade. Again, if conservation policies lower energy use then trade led-growth might not seem to work. If unidirectional Granger causality runs from exports or imports to energy use then conservation policies will have unfavorable effect on trade liberalization policies which may ultimately retard economic growth. Narayan and Smyth (2009) and Lean and Smyth, 2010a and Lean and Smyth, 2010b appear to be the only published papers which aims at the relationship between energy demand and exports. It is now clear that exclusion of a relevant variable(s) not only makes the estimates inconsistent and biased, but also produces ‘no-causality’ (Lütkepohl, 1982). Even the direction of causality changed for some African nations, once capital and labor were included (Wolde-Rufael, 2009). Empirical models that are grounded in sound theory produce better outcomes. Contemporary research also shows that the financial development directly impacts energy use and productivity (Shahbaz, 2012 and Shahbaz and Lean, 2012b). Thus, inclusion of both financial development and trade along with labor and capital appears well justified on theoretical grounds. The framework used here is based on a conventional energy demand model. The long-run relationship and the direction of causality results are different in different countries. Studies conducted in same country may produce different result (see Karanfil, 2009 and Payne, 2010) due to country-specific conditions and methodological differences. Results may also vary due to omitted variable bias or due to absence of inputs substitution possibilities (Akinlo, 2008, Ghali and El-Sakka, 2004 and Stern and Cleveland, 2004). Using Australia data from 1960 to 1999, Fatai et al. (2004) found cointegration between energy use and electricity consumption; and unidirectional causality from output to electricity consumption. Narayan and Smyth (2005) found cointegration between electricity consumption, employment, and real income; and long-run causality from employment and real income to electricity consumption. Narayan and Prasad (2008) used a bivariate model and showed that long-run causality runs from electricity consumption to output. These findings however, differ from the results of Chontanawat et al. (2008), who did not find cointegration between per-capita energy use and per-capita GDP in Australia for a sample of 1960–2000. To avoid potential omitted-variable bias in the above mentioned papers, Yuan et al. (2008) applied neo-classical production function to investigate causality between energy use and economic growth by incorporating capital and labor in case of China. Their empirical exercise found unidirectional causality running from energy use to economic growth. Wang et al. (2011) reported that energy demand, capital and employment Granger cause economic growth. You (2012) opined that clean and renewable energy use stimulates economic growth. On contrary, Zhang and Xu (2012) found causality is running from energy use to economic growth. Furthermore, Shuyun and Donghua (2011) supported the feedback hypothesis between energy use and economic growth and the same inference is reported by Soile (2012) in case of Indonesia. Clearly, there is a lack of consensus on the causality between energy use and income that points to the need for further research. The current study can be considered as a modest attempt to provide further evidence by using a theoretically more justified model to complement some of the existing research to better understand the underlying dynamics. This is main motivation for authors to fill gap research in case of China. The findings are expected to help craft appropriate economic, energy/environment, financial and trade policies to sustain economic growth in China. The objective of the paper is to use production function approach to explain the relationship between energy use and economic growth (Stern, 1993 and Stern, 2000) where GDP depends on energy use, capital and others inputs such as financial development and international trade. The extended Cobb–Douglas production framework helps us to explore a long run relation among the variables: energy use, economic growth, capital, financial development and international trade. The variables are chosen to capture the particular characteristics of Chinese economy. For a long run relation we implement the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and the Johansen Juselius approaches to cointegration, and the vector error correction model (VECM) for short run dynamics. The study period 1971–2011 is relatively long and hallmarked by major changes in the global landscape. These events may potentially cause structural break in the time series. In testing for the stationarity properties, this factor has been taken into account. The paper contributes by taking a comprehensive approach to examine the energy-economic growth nexus for China within a theoretically justified model that has not been done so far. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides brief overview of Chinese economy. Section 3 reviews the relevant literature; Section 4 describes the methodological framework and data sources; Section 5 reports and analyses the results and, Section 6 offers concluding remarks with policy implications.

This paper examines the long run relationship among energy use, financial development, capital, international trade and economic growth for China. Prior to testing for causality, we applied the Zivot and Andrews (1992) and Clemente et al. (1998) unit root tests, which can accommodate structural breaks in the data. The ARDL bound test and Johansen and Juselies (1990) test were carried out to examine cointegration. Our results indicate that there is a unidirectional relationship running from energy use to real GDP. An increase in energy use would raise real GDP. Our empirical findings support the notion that there has been a decoupling of energy use and economic growth. The growth of energy use does not have a direct one-to-one correlation with GDP growth. Thus, the Chinese economy can grow without corresponding increase in environmental pressure. Chinese economy is becoming more energy efficient over the years. To achieve sustainable growth with an ever increasing energy demand, the Chinese government taking steps that will bring energy use under control. A series of policies were put in place to support the realization of this goal (Zhou et al., 2010). One important step has been the completion of the Three Gorges Dam in 2008, which is now the world's largest hydropower plant. China is taking steps to build dozens of new nuclear reactors over the next 20 years. The energy intensity in China have been below unity over the last decade, which means one unit of energy use can support more than one unit of real GDP. Although the energy intensity has experienced sharp decline in China, the energy intensity is still rather high than that of world average. Therefore, China should integrate advanced technology in the production process of its industrial sector to reduce energy use. This will further decrease energy intensity. The Chinese government should make every effort to improve energy efficiency and reduce pollutant emissions. Environmental issues will be a major factor influencing future energy policy in China. China's energy policies should focus on supplying more clean and low-carbon energy. China already is experiencing serious environmental problems through energy activities as coal accounts for about 70% of total primary energy in China which is the dominant source of carbon emissions. Chinese Government's energy policy should diversify energy source to reduce its' reliance on coal. China should take active measures to increase the utilization of cleaner energy sources such as wind, solar, natural gas, nuclear power and hydroelectric power. As the Chinese economy grows, environmental problems in general will worsen with the projected rapid increases in energy use. To realize China's sustainable development, the national energy development strategy should include an energy conservation priority policy, through development of renewable energy. A cleaner energy development strategy is needed for all production processes. China should also focus on developing less energy intensive service sector as the Western economies did, which could lead to further energy conservation. Financial development and economic growth Granger causes each other in both in the short and long run. Financial development enhances domestic production through investment activities and boost economic growth. The unidirectional causality running from energy use to financial development is consistent with Dan and Lijun (2009) in case of Guangdong (China). Chinese economy growing through efficient use of energy, well developed and growing financial markets, export oriented trade policy as confirmed by the Granger causality tests. However, economic growth does not Granger causes energy use, which implies that well developed financial sector favoring efficient use of energy in China. The paper can be seen as an examination of the Chinese policy to support economic growth by encouraging export growth, and financial development and efficient use of energy. As the Chinese economy growing, government should take steps to reduce CO2 and Green house gas (GHS) emissions. Therefore, in the absence of a clearly articulated and implemented sustainable development policy, China's growth may have adverse affect on environment in the long run. The finding that financial development leads to energy use only in the long run, but energy use causes the financial development both in the long and the short run offers some hope. This implies that financial loans used by both the consumers and the investors will add to energy demand. In short run China could benefit from two pronged policy: promote financial development and exports oriented trade policy. Emphasis should be placed on investing in renewable energy sources and adopt other energy savings methods including energy mix and mitigation options in the long run. Failure to address the short run needs may not bring happy ending in the long run. The concern is that the economy might become completely energy dependent and suffer the consequences of high CO2 emission. As a long run goal, financial development strategy should be adopted for creating a sound energy infrastructure and thus achieve efficiency in the overall energy use. As the facts point to, the results so far have been mixed. The economic growth literature emphasizes the importance of financial development on economic prosperity. Among others, an aim of the energy literature is to examine the relationship between financial development and energy use. The empirical models used here fit the data reasonably well and pass most diagnostic tests. The results show that higher energy use Granger causes financial development measured by domestic credit to the private sector as share of GDP. These findings deserve close scrutiny for a number of reasons. Emerging economies that continue to develop financial markets should see energy demand rise above and beyond those caused by rising income. However, the paper finds evidence that China was able to control this energy demand through efficient use of energy. Any energy demand projections in emerging economies at the exclusion of financial development as an explanatory variable might provide inaccurate estimate actual energy demand and unduly interfere with the conservation policies. China should take extra caution in providing the necessary environment and infrastructure that must precede financial development policy. Containing greenhouse gas emissions may be harder if these targets are set without taking into account the impact of financial development on energy demand. For future research on energy consumption and real GDP nexus in China, regional and provincial data can be used as the aggregate data used to weaken the correct causality and cause spurious feedback relationship. Another possibility for further research is as to investigate the nexus on different sector of the economy such as agriculture, transport, commerce, industry, and households. Such studies can be very interesting for energy policy design as these would be micro foundation for aggregate macro-economy. We can also apply unit root test with single and two unknown structural breaks stemming in the series developed by Narayan and Popp (2010) and newly development cointegration approach by Bayer and Hanck (2012) to reexamine the relationship between, energy use, financial development, trade openness and economic growth in China using sectoral data.