【Speaker】： Baiding Hu （Senior Lecturer of economics， Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce at Lincoln University）

【Title】：Level of aggregation and magnitude of energy rebound: China’s industrial sector

【Time】：9：00am-11：00am Mar.4, 2015.

【Location】：CEEP-BIT, 6th Floor

【About Report】：
　　The research starts by examining input factors’ growth in the sector over the period 1990-2012, which shows that while the consumption of coal is slowing down in a relative sense, that of electricity is picking up. Since total factor productivity is likely to be driven by improving energy quality, the aforementioned increasing electrification serves as the pretext for investigation of rebound effects in the sector. The research then proceeds to estimate total factor productivity growth for the sector using sectoral level (aggregated) data, followed by a decomposition analysis to assess rebound effect. Because of the availability of subsectoral data, the information on the inter-subsectoral linkages is explored in view of the business cycle literature. This is to recognise that different subsectors are subject to different technological shocks and different compositions of energy consumption. 　　　　These differences will not necessarily averaged out as implied in the aggregate data. Thus, two sets of rebound effect estimates are produced for the sector, one obtained from the aggregated data and the other from the disaggregated (subsectoral) data. The research concludes by arguing why the rebound estimate based on the disaggregated data is more reasonable on the one hand, and outlining cases whereby the level of aggregation does not matter on the other.

 
【About Speaker】：

　　Dr Baiding Hu is a senior lecturer of economics in the Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce at Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Western Australia. Prior to joining Lincoln University, he had held faculty positions at La Trobe and Macquarie Universities in Australia. Baiding has also been an economist for the National Institute of Economics and Industry Research, a Melbourne based private consulting firm, where he was involved in providing forecasts of sectoral energy consumption for both the public and private sectors. His current research interests include energy economics, productivity and efficiency, and Chinese economy.