Effects of indigenous R&D and foreign spillover on energy intensity in China

We introduce an expanded Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology model and China's provincial data samples from 2003 to 2012 in order to explore the effect of research and development (R&D) on energy intensity across different regions in China. A panel vector autoregressive model is employed to explore the possible granger causes between indigenous R&D stock, foreign R&D spillover, and energy intensity, and a Driscoll-Kraay method is applied to assess their relationships. The main conclusions are as follows: (i) Granger casual links from home R&D stock and foreign R&D spillover to energy intensity exist in China. (ii) A negative effect of indigenous R&D stock on energy intensity exists in nationwide, eastern, and central samples, and it grows as the stock increases. Besides, the impact in the central region is much larger than that in eastern China. (iii) Foreign R&D spillovers via import and foreign direct investment (FDI) significantly reduce energy intensity in two sub-samples. FDI spillover's impact is larger than import spillover's impact in central provinces, while it is smaller in the eastern region. Besides, mainly because of the low absorptive capacity, the impacts of foreign R&D spillovers on energy intensity are insignificant in western China. Published by AIP Publishing.