Does innovation efficiency promote energy consumption intensity? New evidence from China

In the context of carbon neutrality, whether innovation efficiency can change the energy consumption intensity has been attracted extensive attention by the academic community. This paper adopts the MinDS and the Global Malmquist index to measure the innovation efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019, and it empirically analyzes the impact of innovation efficiency on energy consumption intensity based on spatial Durbin model. The empirical results show that: (1) Innovation efficiency of each region gradually increases over time, GML cumulatively increases by 39.19% and the annual growth rate is 2.4%. It is obvious that innovation efficiency is mainly driven by the change of technical efficiency, while technological progress just plays a minor or even inhibitory role. (2) Energy consumption intensity has a positive spatial correlation, which shows a "high–high"​ and "low–low" spatial aggregation characteristics. (3) Innovation efficiency plays a positive effect on energy consumption intensity, it also has a prominent spatial spillover effects, that is, the improvement of innovation efficiency in surrounding cities will increase the energy consumption intensity of the local region. (4) According to the mediation effect test, it is found that innovation efficiency can promotes energy consumption intensity through industrial structure.