Circular city construction and energy efficiency: Evidence from China’s ‘circular economy demonstration cities’

IF 8.7 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economic Analysis and Policy Pub Date : 2025-10-01 DOI:10.1016/j.eap.2025.10.004

Rongji Wang , Yan Zhang , Wei Wan , Dongbei Bai , Jue Wang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Improving energy efficiency is an important pathway for developing countries to achieve carbon emission reduction. This paper examines the impact of China’s environmental policy—the Circular Economy Demonstration Cities (CEDCs)—on energy efficiency at the prefecture level, adopting both theoretical and empirical approaches. Our findings indicate that the implementation of CEDCs significantly enhances energy efficiency, and the conclusion still holds after various robustness tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that the improvement in energy efficiency is primarily driven by increased green technological innovation, the deepening of green finance development, industrial upgrading and greater public attention to circular economy practices. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that the policy effects are more pronounced in resource-based cities characterized by higher levels of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation. Additionally, soft constraints on economic growth targets help to reinforce the effectiveness of the CEDCs policy. Further analysis shows that the CEDCs policy can effectively enhance social welfare and constitutes an important measure for achieving Pareto improvements. This study provides an institutional explanation for the improvement of energy efficiency in China and offers important insights for developing countries in designing incentive-compatible policy mechanisms.

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循环城市建设与能源效率：来自中国“循环经济示范城市”的证据

提高能源效率是发展中国家实现碳减排的重要途径。本文采用理论和实证相结合的方法，从地级市层面考察了中国环境政策——循环经济示范城市（CEDCs）对能源效率的影响。我们的研究结果表明，CEDCs的实施显著提高了能源效率，并且经过各种稳健性检验，结论仍然成立。机制分析表明，能效提升主要受绿色技术创新力度加大、绿色金融发展深入、产业升级和公众对循环经济实践的关注等因素驱动。异质性分析进一步表明，在产业集聚水平和环境规制水平较高的资源型城市，政策效应更为明显。此外，对经济增长目标的软约束有助于加强可持续发展中心政策的有效性。进一步分析表明，cedc政策可以有效提高社会福利水平，是实现帕累托改善的重要措施。本研究为中国能源效率的提高提供了制度解释，并为发展中国家设计激励相容的政策机制提供了重要见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Economic Analysis and Policy ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

9.80

自引率

9.20%

发文量

231

审稿时长

93 days

期刊介绍： Economic Analysis and Policy (established 1970) publishes articles from all branches of economics with a particular focus on research, theoretical and applied, which has strong policy relevance. The journal also publishes survey articles and empirical replications on key policy issues. Authors are expected to highlight the main insights in a non-technical introduction and in the conclusion.