Regional disparity of urban energy efficiency and its impact factors in CHINA

Abstract

With the panel data of Chinese 210 prefecture-level cities in 1995-2006, this paper firstly measures Chinese cities Total Factor Energy Efficiency using CRS-DEA model; secondly, With describing the features of regional differences, the results show changing trends of urban energy efficiency being displayed as 4 'inverted U' characteristics. A turning point of widening gap occurred in 2000 between cities, while there is a certain convergence between regional disparities. Urban energy efficiency levels are not stable, low efficiency and high energy input cities will be the focus of energy-saving and emission reduction. Finally, according to the Tobit model, resource endowment, temperature, industrial structure, technological and variety of policy factors should be treated differently in different situations.