ICT and energy rebound effect: Empirical analysis based on data from Chinese cities

Abstract

Information and communication technology (ICT) is predicted to emerge as a new driver of economic growth in the future and has been identified as a significant strategic emerging industry. It is of great theoretical and practical significance to include ICT in the energy rebound measurement framework. Based on Chinese city-level data from 2006 to 2019, this paper incorporates ICT into an improved stochastic frontier (SFA) model of energy consumption to measure the energy rebound effect (ERE) in 252 prefecture-level cities, and further investigates the formation mechanism of ICT affecting the ERE. The results show that when ICT is included in the energy rebound measurement framework, the average value of ERE in each region of China ranges from 0.4627 to 0.6458, with an overall average value of 0.5532, indicating that China's actual reduction in energy consumption is only about 40% of that expected. In terms of distributional characteristics, the mean value of ERE increases from coastal to inland, with the center of gravity always deviating from mainland China's geometric center (103°50'E, 36°N), the degree of spatial imbalance in the east-west direction is much greater than in the north-south direction. It is worth noting that ICT has a significant dampening effect on ERE, and the conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. In addition, the mechanisms by which ICT affects energy rebound include breaking through geographical and administrative barriers and reducing the impact of market segmentation on factor mobility.

Keywords: Energy consumption; Energy rebound effect; ICT; Stochastic frontier model.