Investigating the Relationship between Agricultural Energy Consumption and Agricultural Economic Growth in Different Regions of China
中国区域农业生产用能与农业经济增长关系研究

Agricultural energy consumption and agricultural output show obvious regional differences in China. Based on data of agricultural energy consumption and agricultural output value during the period 1990 to 2008, the authors used cluster analysis methods to conceptually partition the entire country into four regions, i.e., high growth to high consumption (I), low growth to high consumption (II), low growth to low consumption (III), and high growth to low consumption (IV). Then a panel data model was built to unravel the relationship between agricultural energy consumption and agricultural output in different regions. Results show that the integrated characteristics between energy consumption and agricultural economic growth in different areas can generally be reflected by the four regions that high energy consumption areas are located mainly in the eastern region, but these areas are not necessarily high agricultural growth. Low energy consumption areas are located mainly in the western region, but these areas are not necessarily low agricultural growth. There exist co-integration relationships between agricultural energy consumption and agricultural output in each region. Differences in the relationship between agricultural energy consumption and economic growth for the four regions and different provinces in each region were revealed quantitatively by model analysis. From the model test results, it was found that the correlation coefficient is positive between agricultural energy consumption and economic growth in region I and region IV, whereas the correlation coefficient is negative in region II and region III. This demonstrates that energy consumption plays an important role in promoting agricultural economic growth in high growth to high consumption (I) and high growth to low consumption (IV); however, this rule cannot be applied to other regions. At the same time, the close degree of the relationship between agricultural energy consumption and economic growth was analyzed in detail, and the difference in agricultural output in different regions caused by increasing energy input was also taken into account. The energy efficiency is relatively low in developed areas of region II that has high energy consumption and low agricultural economic growth, and the agricultural energy input is insufficient in underdeveloped areas of region III and region IV. According to above results, some suggestions were put forward, i. e., improving efficiency of agricultural energy consumption in China; implementing reasonable development plans of agricultural energy use; and learning from each other among different regions. This study can provide a sound basis for promoting the efficiency of agricultural energy use and healthy development of agriculture in China.