Exploring carbon emissions, economic growth, energy and RD investment in China by ARDL approach

摘要

This paper examines the causal relationship among economic growth, energy structure, R&D investment and carbon emission in China by using autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach of cointegration during the period of 1990–2011. In order to examine this linkage, theauthors use the two-step procedures. Firstly, theauthors conducted the unit root tests to measure whether the single integrated of time series is not more than 1. Secondly, theauthors explore the long-run relationships between the variables by using ARDL bounds testing approach complemented by Johansen-Juselius maximum likelihood procedure in a multivariate framework. The findings are as follows:when carbon emissions and economic growth, respectively, are the dependent variable, the other independent variables show the long-term stability cointegration relationship of the dependent variable. Whether in the short-run or long-run relationship, the impact of economic growth and R&D investment on carbon emission is not statistically significant. In the long term and short term relationships, carbon emissions have a positive impact on the economic growth. However, energy structure has a negative impact on the economic growth. The decrease in energy structure will cause carbon emissions reduction and boost economic growth in both the long-run and short-run period. Therefore, China's government should give more attention to the optimization of energy structure and make a reasonable and feasible energy saving policy.