Energy Productivity and Convergence in the Asia Region.pdf

1、Energy is a well identified to be the fundamental factor of production function ineconomic activity and it is closely associated with economic development.In the recent years,there has been growing concerns about energy

2、due to the environmental problems, climatechange and high energy price.In order to maintain sustainable economic development, thereis a strong need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and enhance current security of energysup

3、ply.Particularly, in Asia energy use has been increasing at fastest rate due to higherpopulation growth, rapid economic development, rising standard of living, fast urbanization,and accelerated industrialization.The econ

4、omic development patterns of the Asia region havebeen highly affected in the current global economy and this region clearly has a wide spatialvariation of energy use.The geographic variation of energy use in the Asia reg

5、ion is not onlyaffected by the economic system of the individual country but also greatly affected by theenergy structure of the adjacent countries, thereby it is needed to identify the determinationfactors that have str

6、ong influence on energy productivity and to investigate whether existenceof the convergence of energy productivity within Asian countries which provide usefulinformation for making effective policy to promote and improve

7、 the energy productivity in agreat extent within Asian countries.
　　The main goal of this dissertation is to examine and establish the link between energyproductivity and its determinant factors as well as convergence

8、 or divergence of energyproductivity for thirty-five Asian countries.For this purpose, we firstly calculated energyproductivity for thirty-five Asian countries during the study period from 1991-2011 by usinga Data Envelo

9、pment Analysis (DEA) approach.We then examined and established the linkbetween energy productivity and its determinant factors employing the recently developednon-spatial panel models and spatial panel models for the ful

10、l-sample countries and fivedifferent sub-sample countries.The results of the non-spatial panel models indicate that themajority of the determinant factors have a negative impact on energy productivity for thefull-sample

11、countries and five sub-sample countries during the entire study period.However,the results of the spatial panel models, the determinant factors of trade openness and foreigndirect investment (FDI) have the positive influ

12、ence on energy productivity for the full-samplecountries and sub-sample countries.The results confirm that these determinant factors arepositively associated with energy productivity in these nations.The results also sho

13、w thatimprovement in energy productivity have significant effect on economic growth for selectedsample countries.Likewise, this study found that determinant factor of industrial structure hasa positive influence on energ

14、y productivity for the full-sample countries and four sub-samplecountries (North Asia, South East Asia, South Asia and West Asia).This study also found thatdeterminant factor of energy price has a positive impact on ener

15、gy productivity for thefull-sample countries and three sub-sample countries (North Asia, North East Asia and SouthAsia).It reveals that these two (industrial structure and energy price) determinant factors havesignifican

16、tly contributing to energy productivity improvement in these Asian nations duringthe study period 1991-2011.On the other hand, this study found that determinant factor ofinvestment has a negative influence on energy prod

17、uctivity for the full-sample countries aswell as sub-sample countries.Furthermore, the results of spatial lagged and error terms have apositive spillover effect on energy productivity for the full-ample countries as well

18、 assub-sample countries during the study period from 1991 to 2011.This indicates that theempirical result is in favor of spatial panel models, which implies that spatial spillover effectis significant on energy productiv

19、e improvement in these selected sample countries.
　　We finally focus on empirical analysis of the convergence or divergence of energyproductivity for the full-sample as well as five sub-sample countries (North Asia, N

20、orth EastAsia, South East Asia, South Asia, and West Asia) from 1991 to 2011.We first used thesigma-convergence approach to investigate the disparity of energy productivity during thestudy period.The sigma-convergence de

21、monstrates that there is a clear evidence ofconvergence process in energy productivity for the full-sample countries as well as threesub-sample countries, namely, North East Asia, South Asia and West Asia throughout thes

22、tudy period from 1991 to 2011.This result corroborates the basic idea of sigma-convergencethat measures the disparity of productivity level during the specific time period.On thecontrary, North Asia and South East Asia s

23、how a very weak evidence of sigma-convergenceprocess in energy productivity during the entire study period.This indicates thatsigma-convergence of energy productivity is somehow convergence and divergence over thestudy p

24、eriod.We then used the beta-convergence models to estimate whether there exists anevidence of convergence in energy productivity across Asian nations during the study periodby applying the spatial panel models (the spati

25、al lag panel model (SAR), the spatial errorpanel model (SEM) and the spatial Durbin panel model (SDM)).The beta-convergenceresults reveal that there exists a convergence process in energy productivity for thefull-sample

26、countries and four sub-sample countries (North East Asia, South East Asia, SouthAsia, and West Asia).This empirical result supports with the basic idea of convergencetheory that countries having comparatively low initial

27、 energy productivity levels catching upto high income countries.In contrast, the beta-convergence does not in favor of energyproductivity in North Asia for the whole study period.This result does not corroborate thebasic

28、 idea of convergence theory that poor countries tend to increase faster than rich nations.Furthermore, the results show that trade openness has a positive impact on energyproductivity growth for the full-sample countries

29、 and five sub-sample countries for the wholestudy period.This control variable has become a major determinant factor in the process ofconvergence of energy productivity for the full-sample countries and five sub-sampleco

30、untries.
　　The findings of this dissertation provide useful information for these countries in orderto make important strategies to improve and promote their energy productivity to boost theeconomic growth and sustain

31、able development in Asia.The findings also provide vitalinformation for these Asian nations to enhance technology transfer and promote tradebetween developed and less developed nations as well as to design effective ener