Does trade promote energy efficiency convergence in the Belt and Road Initiative countries?

It is of great practical significance to explore the impact of trade on energy efficiency convergence for improving the overall energy efficiency, narrowing the energy efficiency gap and promoting the construction of a green Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Given the large difference in economic development and resource endowment among BRI countries, this paper empirically explores the impact of import and export trade of BRI countries on the convergence of total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE), and the threshold effect with different level of economic development and industrial structure, based on the panel data of 60 BRI countries and the panel threshold model. The results indicate that the import and export trades of BRI countries have not significantly accelerated the convergence process of their overall TFEE. However, the trade of BRI countries exerts a non-linear threshold effect on the TFEE convergence. Specifically, the trade of BRI countries with GDP per capita level over 48436 USD is conducive to accelerating the TFEE convergence, but this impact is not significant in those countries with lower levels of economic development. The trade accelerates the TFEE convergence of BRI countries with industrial share over 71.74%, while the impact is not significant in those countries with relatively lower industrial shares.

Automated summary

This study found that although the import and export trade of BRI countries did not significantly accelerate the convergence of overall energy efficiency, trade has a non-linear threshold effect on energy efficiency convergence. The impact of trade on energy efficiency is influenced by the level of economic development and industrial structure of countries.