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<p>Energy efficiency has long been a critical focus of environmental protection, and improving energy efficiency is essential for achieving sustainable development. Using data from 1,014 counties (cities, districts) in China from 2009 to 2019, this study measures energy efficiency through the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) approach. Building on the quasi-natural experiment of superior governments removing GDP evaluation metrics for county-level governments, the paper employs a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model to examine the impact of Adjustments of Government Performance Evaluation (AGPE) on county-level energy efficiency. Our findings demonstrate that AGPE significantly improves county-level energy efficiency, and this result remains robust across a series of validation tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that county-level governments enhance energy efficiency by increasing fiscal expenditures on energy conservation, encouraging enterprises to improve technological innovation, and optimizing energy consumption structures. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the effect of the policy on energy efficiency improvement is more pronounced in National Key Ecological Function Areas, non-poverty counties, and counties with lower fiscal tension. This study focuses on the interaction between grassroots government behavior and ecological governance. It provides a novel theoretical and empirical perspective on how grassroots government actions influence energy governance, offering substantive contributions to research and policy development.</p>

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Government performance evaluation and energy efficiency: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment on the removal of GDP evaluations in Chinese counties

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月27日

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  • Xinshuo Hou,
  • Guangxiang Zheng,
  • Keyi Huang,
  • Dongyang Li

摘要

Energy efficiency has long been a critical focus of environmental protection, and improving energy efficiency is essential for achieving sustainable development. Using data from 1,014 counties (cities, districts) in China from 2009 to 2019, this study measures energy efficiency through the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) approach. Building on the quasi-natural experiment of superior governments removing GDP evaluation metrics for county-level governments, the paper employs a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model to examine the impact of Adjustments of Government Performance Evaluation (AGPE) on county-level energy efficiency. Our findings demonstrate that AGPE significantly improves county-level energy efficiency, and this result remains robust across a series of validation tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that county-level governments enhance energy efficiency by increasing fiscal expenditures on energy conservation, encouraging enterprises to improve technological innovation, and optimizing energy consumption structures. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the effect of the policy on energy efficiency improvement is more pronounced in National Key Ecological Function Areas, non-poverty counties, and counties with lower fiscal tension. This study focuses on the interaction between grassroots government behavior and ecological governance. It provides a novel theoretical and empirical perspective on how grassroots government actions influence energy governance, offering substantive contributions to research and policy development.