Green energy mismatch, industrial intelligence and economics growth: theory and empirical evidence from China

With the continuous uptick in world energy consumption, green energy plays an increasingly significant role in alleviating energy depletion and promoting economic development. Due to regional differences, transportation restrictions, national policies and other reasons, there is a mismatch between green energy needs and resources across regions in China, which leads to misallocation of capital and labor between heavily polluting and nonpolluting enterprises. In this context, this paper first proposes a new measurement method: namely, the capital and labor mismatch index. Panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2018 are utilized to calculate the index. The results show significant resource mismatch across provinces in China. In addition, we extend the green Solow model by combining capital mismatch, technological progress and environmental regulation into a dynamic analysis framework of economic growth. The empirical results show that all three factors have significant spatial spillover effects. Specifically, capital misallocation exerts a strong negative impact on economic growth, while the other factors increase it.