Elasticity of substitution is traditionally estimated while ignoring technical and allocative inefficiencies, which could bias the estimates. We estimate elasticity of substitution for Chinese energy-intensive sectors by incorporating these inefficiencies. The results show most of the sectors are low substitutes between input factors and stress important differences among energy-intensive sectors. Concerning the cross-price elasticity for energy, with respect to capital (labor), the sectors are mainly characterized by weak substitutability or complementary. These imply the production structure is quite rigid and capital cannot be so readily used as a substitute for energy. 相似文献
Biased technological progress is the act of energy conservation and emission reduction by changing the marginal rate of substitution. In this study, we introduced renewable energy into a production function, and proposed a method of identifying biased characteristics of technological progress, based on marginal productivity theory. A panel dataset for the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies from 2000 to 2017 was analyzed to explore the effect of biased technological progress in reducing particulate matter (PM2.5). We found that input biased technological progress tended to use more non-renewable energy. Input biased technological progress aggravated haze pollution; however, this effect decreased as the PM2.5 concentration increased. Output biased technological progress significantly reduced haze pollution in high-income economies, but increased it in low-income economies. The effect of neutral technological progress on haze pollution was the opposite of the effect from output biased technological progress. We also found that increasing renewable energy consumption and reducing energy intensity were separate effective paths for input and output biased technological progress, respectively, to mitigate haze pollution. For neutral technological progress, improving total factor productivity was an important way to mitigate haze pollution. Finally, several policy recommendations are proposed to mitigate haze pollution in APEC economies.