Journal article
Digital technology and energy sustainability: Recent advances, challenges, and opportunities

Wei, C., C.Z. Li, A. Löschel, S. Managi, and T. Lundgren. 2023. Digital technology and energy sustainability: Recent advances, challenges, and opportunities. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 190:106803.

Digitalization and sustainability represent two global mainstreams, which affect many dimensions of economic activity and daily life. However, their interaction remains still underexploited with different synergies and tradeoffs between these goals. This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) entitled “Digital technology and energy sustainability: impacts and policy needs” presents recent research on the nexus between digital technology and energy sustainability. This editorial introduces seven recent studies on...

Journal article
Electricity con­sumption as a new indicator of inequality

Wu, S., C. Li, and C. Wei. 2022. Electricity con­sumption as a new indicator of inequality. Ener­gy Research & Social Science 90:102677.

Inequality is a growing public concern and economic threat. The degree of which, however, varies greatly depending on the choice of indicators for measurement. In this paper, we compare the strength and weaknesses of the existing indicators such as income and wealth and propose a new measure of inequality based on household electricity consumption. We believe that our measure has the advantage of capturing both...

Journal article
Recent advanc­es in China’s sustainable transition studies

Wei, C., Xu, and C.-Z. Li. 2022. Recent advanc­es in China’s sustainable transition studies. Let­ters in Spatial and Resource Sciences .

The world is confronted with increasing uncertainty and divisive threats to a sustainable global transition. Deglobalization is driving economic decoupling, and the pandemic is further preventing social exchange. The outcome of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference is a rare source of positive news. This special issue, entitled “Space Reconstruction in China’s Sustainable Transition: Land, Energy and Carbon Emission”, makes a timely academic contribution in...

Journal article
Envelope theo­rems in economics: Historical development and modern cost-benefit applications

Löfgren, K.G. and C.Z. Li. 2021. Envelope theo­rems in economics: Historical development and modern cost-benefit applications. Frontiers of Economics in China 16: 377-404.

This paper reviews some historical development and modern applications of the envelope theorems in economics from a static to a dynamic context. First, we show how the static version of the theorem surfaced in economics, which had eventually lead to the well-known Shephard’s lemma in microeconomics. Second, we present its dynamic version in terms of the classical calculus of variations and optimal control theory via...

Journal article
Decoupling economic and energy growth: aspiration or reality?

Guo, J. C.-Z. Li, and C. Wei. 2021. Decoupling economic and energy growth: aspiration or reality?. Environmental Research Letters 044017.

Energy has long been a driving force of economic growth; however, it comes with environmental costs and security challenges. This study analyzes the energy–economy nexus and explores their decoupling possibilities by using cross-country data over the years 1971–2014. The results indicate that, while energy use and economic growth exhibit a typical inverted U-shaped decoupling relationship for the industrialized countries, they have been rising in tandem...

Journal article
Income threshold, household appliance ownership and residential energy consumption in urban China

Li, C.-Z., Wei, C. and Yu, Y. 2020. Income threshold, household appliance ownership and residential energy consumption in urban China. China Economic Review 60:1-12.

A stochastic income threshold model for appliances ownership is developed.•The Deaton approach is applied to create pseudo-panel data from repeated cross-sectional surveys.•The income threshold is heterogeneous across appliances and household types in China.•Ignoring the heterogeneity leads to underestimated appliance ownership for poor and near-poor households.•Conditional electricity demand is analyzed on appliance stocks for various household types.

Journal article
Green Certificate Trading, Renewable Portfolio Standard and Tax Burden Reductions

Yu, Y., and C.-Z. Li. 2020. Green Certificate Trading, Renewable Portfolio Standard and Tax Burden Reductions. Chinese journal of population, resources and environment  2:80–88.

The article is in Chinese with an English summary: The national-wide issuance and trading of green certificates has been initiated to improve the renewable energy integration and reduce the tax burden in the feed-in tariff scheme. To test the latter effects in green certificate trading, we construct the certificate pricing model to analyze the market equilibrium with or without renewable portfolio standard requirements, and compare...

Journal article
Valuing biodiversity and resilience: An application to pollinator diversity in the Stockholm region

Engström, G., Å. Gren, C.Z. Li, and C. Kiran. 2020. Valuing biodiversity and resilience: An application to pollinator diversity in the Stockholm region. Spatial Economic Analysis 15(3):238-261.

This paper characterizes the value of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience by formalizing a stochastic dynamic bioeconomic model of pollinator diversity under climate changes, with an application to oil rapeseed production in the Stockholm region of Sweden. It studies the optimal provision of semi-natural habitat for two different pollinator bee species: bumble bees and solitary wild bees. It is found that, despite being less effective, solitary...

Journal article
Quantifying energy consumption in household surveys: An alternative device-based accounting approach

Wu, S., X. Zheng, J. Guo, C.-Z. Li, C. and Wei. 2020. Quantifying energy consumption in household surveys: An alternative device-based accounting approach. Field Methods  32:213–232.

The exercise of quantifying the energy consumption data assembled through household surveys, either by the recall-based approach or the meter-based approach, remains a challenging task, especially in rural areas of developing countries. In this article, we propose a device-based bottom-up accounting method for estimating household energy consumption. This method provides microlevel disaggregated estimates at the intensive margin and documents other difficult-to-measure energy consumption such as...

Journal article
The Social Costs of Marine Litter along the East China Sea: Evidence from Ten Coastal Scenic Spots of Zhejiang Province, China

Shen, M., D. Mao, H. Xie, and C. Z. Li. 2019. The Social Costs of Marine Litter along the East China Sea: Evidence from Ten Coastal Scenic Spots of Zhejiang Province, China. Sustainability 11(6):1−15.

Marine litter poses numerous threats to the global environment. To estimate the social costs of marine litter in China, two stated preference methods, namely the contingent valuation model (CVM) and the choice experiment model (CEM), were used in this research. This paper conducted surveys at ten different beaches along the East China Sea in Zhejiang province in October 2017. The results indicate that approximately 74.1%...