Research on the Difference of Carbon Emission Intensity and The Convergence in The Regional Economic Growth in China

In the article based on the sustainable economic development theory, the Barro and Sala-i-Martin’s β-convergence models are herein extended and inter-provincial panel data are selected as the samples to investigate the convergence of carbon emission intensity in the Chinese regional economic coordinated development. On the basis of the research, a convergence path has been proposed to develop jointly among Chinese different regional economic environments. Importantly, the conditional β-Convergence of carbon emission intensity in the Chinese regional economic coordinated development is confirmed by empirically testing 30 inter-provincial samples from Chinese mainland. It is also confirmed that different regions present a trend similar to the β-convergence due to the test result of three sub-samples. The speed of the convergence in the central region is fastest and the speed of the convergence in the western region seems to be slower than that in the central region, whereas it is slowest in the eastern region. In view of the fact that the joint development of regional economic environments is endowed with its plausible differences and convergence, a path to accelerate the convergence of joint development of regional economic environments should be selected.