Economic development, marketisation and energy consumption: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the relationship between economic development, marketisation and energy consumption. We hypothesise that both economic development and marketisation can affect energy consumption and that marketisation plays a more fundamental role. Empirical results from single-factor regressions show that both economic development and marketisation have negative associations with energy consumption. Results from two-stage regressions and variance decomposition demonstrate that marketisation has a more determinative effect on energy consumption than economic development does. The policy implication of our research is that, to reduce energy consumption, policy-makers should make better use of the role of markets in resource allocation.