Regional Energy Rebound Effect in China Based on IPAT Equation

This paper has focused on China´s regional rebound effects, which is closely linked to efficiency improvement and economic growth. The analysis provides a new method in region division regarding the size of energy intensity. And it also introduces an estimation model based in IPAT equation and Cobb-Douglas production function to explore the rebound effects in three major regions. The result shows the average rebound effect is 53.66%, 69.82%, 78.80% for the high, middle, low-efficiency region respectively during 1985-2008. While the evidence in favor of existence of rebound effects in China is far from conclusive, it does suggest we should not only rely on improving energy efficiency, but also heavily taxing resources, in order to limit energy depletion.