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Energy Reports 8 (2022) 513–521

www.elsevier.com/locate/egyr

2022 International Symposium on New Energy Technology Innovation and Low Carbon
Development (NET-LC 2022), January 21 to 23, 2022, Kunming, China

The asymmetric effects of economic growth, urbanization and

deindustrialization on carbon emissions: Evidence from China
Yueli Tanga,b , Huiming Zhub ,∗, Jing Yanga
a Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology, Haikou 571126, China
b College of Business Administration, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Received 26 April 2022; accepted 14 May 2022
Available online xxxx

Abstract
Under the international environmental constraints formed by the implementation of carbon emissions reductions, China is
facing tremendous pressure to reduce emissions while promoting stable economic development. This study analyzes the effects
of Chinese economic growth rate, urbanization level, and deindustrialization level on carbon dioxide emissions under different
levels of carbon dioxide emissions based on a quantile regression model. The study finds that: (1) In the stage of large carbon
emissions, that is, in the stage of extensive economic development, the economic growth rate and carbon emissions have a
positive linear curve relationship. (2) When carbon emissions remain at a normal level or even lower than usual, that is, energy
resources have not yet been developed under the current economic backwardness or carbon emissions have been effectively
controlled, the urbanization level and carbon dioxide emissions have a U-shaped curve relationship. (3) In most cases, the level
of deindustrialization has an inverted U-shaped relationship with carbon emissions. (4) When carbon emissions are too large,
that is, at the stage of extensive industrial development, the increase of deindustrialization level reduces the effect of economic
growth rate on carbon emissions. During periods of low carbon emissions, the increase of deindustrialization level weakens the
inhibitory effect of urbanization level on carbon emissions. This research provides a theoretical basis for China to implement
emission reduction measures based on its own economic and social stages.
© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Symposium on New Energy Technology Innovation and Low Carbon
Development, NET-LC, 2022.

Keywords: Carbon emissions; Economic growth; Urbanization; Deindustrialization; Quantile regression

1. Introduction
Today, emerging economies have had relatively fast economic growth rates and sufficient economic development
potential, and have made great contributions to promoting world economic growth. With the development of
economic and the advancement of urbanization of emerging economies, the carbon emissions of these countries
are and will continue to grow rapidly. For a long period of time in the future, the periodic rigid demand for energy
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhuhuiming@hnu.edu.cn (H. Zhu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2022.05.076
2352-4847/© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Symposium on New Energy Technology Innovation and Low
Carbon Development, NET-LC, 2022.
Y. Tang, H. Zhu and J. Yang Energy Reports 8 (2022) 513–521

indicates that as long as the economy continues to grow, carbon emissions will continue to expand. Emerging
economies are in the stage of rapid development, and their development paths are slightly different from developed
countries due to the different backgrounds of the time. Compared with developed countries, in the view of the lag and
instability of economic developments, emerging countries must consider the sustainability of economic development
on the one hand, and the energy and environmental issues brought about by urbanization and industrialization on
the other hand. These countries are facing the dual contradiction of economic development and improvement of the
energy environment.
China, as one of the representative countries of emerging economies, is a major global economic and trade
country, China is also a major carbon emission country. Chinese urbanization and industrialization process is in
a rapid development stage. Clean energy is currently not available on a large scale due to its high price, which
makes Chinese carbon emissions remain high. Under the international environmental constraints formed by the
implementation of emissions reductions, China is facing tremendous pressure to reduce emissions.
“Green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains” means to maintain the balance
between economic development and ecological environment as much as possible. Clarifying the relationship between
social economic development and carbon emissions is the key to promoting the harmonious coexistence of the
society and environment. This study is based on a quantile regression (QR) model to systematically analyze the
impact of Chinese social and economic development on carbon emissions from 1960 to 2018. This study attempts
to answer the following three questions: (1) Whether there is an environmental Kuznets curve relationship between
the economic growth rate, urbanization level and deindustrialization level with carbon emissions; (2) What are
the characteristics of the economy and society during periods of different levels of carbon emissions; What are
the impacts of economic growth rate, urbanization level and de-industrialization level on carbon emissions during
different periods? What are the reasons behind it; (3) Whether there is a coordinating effect on carbon dioxide
emissions among economic growth rate, urbanization level and deindustrialization level. This study aims to provide
a theoretical basis for China to implement scientific and reasonable measures to control carbon emissions. This
study has the following three highlights: (1) The selected indicator is the speed of economic development rather
than the level of economic development. Economic growth rate has real economic significance and stability. (2)
This study introduces deindustrialization level and analyzes the impact of industrial upgrading on carbon emissions
from another perspective. (3) Using the QR model to study the environmental Kuznets curve of carbon emissions,
the two-way dynamic relationship between carbon emissions and influencing factors can be obtained.

2. Literature review
Existing studies on the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth mainly include linear
relationships (Iwata, Okada and Samreth, 2011; Li and Leung, 2012) [1,2], N-shaped curve relationships ((Friedl and
Getzner, 2003; Yang G, Sun T, Wang J, et al. 2015) [3,4] and the inverted U-shaped curve relationship (Grossman
and Krueger, 1993, 1999; Dong F, Wang Y, Su B, et al. 2019) [5–7]. Among them, Grossman and Krueger propose
that the economic development intensifies environmental pollution in the initial stage and alleviates environmental
pollution after a certain level of economic development, which is called the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)
between environmental pollution and economic development . Most of the subsequent studies have confirmed this
conclusion. For example, Selden et al. (1992); Stockey (1998); Abdouli and Hammami (2017) find that there is
an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between income and environmental quality [8–10]. Liu R. (2006), Galeotti
et al. (2006) and Wang M, Huang Y (2015) verify the inverted U-shaped relationship between Chinese economic
development and environmental pollution [11–13]. Huang T. (2020) believes that during the development of the
new 11 countries, both the relationships between the carbon emissions and the economic development, urbanization
present an EKC that first rises and then falls, and there is obvious different impact of the economic development on
carbon emissions at any country [14]. However, the researches by Robalino-López et al. (2014) and Baek (2015)
show that the inverted U-shaped curve does not exist [15,16]. The academic community has not yet reached a
consensus on the relationship between carbon emissions and economic development.
The relationship between the urbanization level and carbon emissions is more complicated. Along with economic
development, urbanization is almost inevitable (Channery, Serkun, Li X., 1988) [17]. Existing empirical studies have
shown that for fast-developing countries or regions, the differences in development paths and models determine that
there is no clear correspondence between the economic development and urbanization level in these countries (Zhang
Y, Zhao M, 2003) [18]. The differences in urbanization level often reflect differences in population distribution,
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production and lifestyles, industrial concentration and informatization and so on (Chen M., 2013) [19]. These
differences often lead to differences in carbon emissions at the same level of economic development. On the one
hand, with the development of urbanization, social production and living standards have risen correspondingly, and
energy consumption and carbon emissions have increased accordingly. On the other hand, the research of Liddle
et al. (2010) shows that urbanization increases the number of people on the public power system, but when the
population is concentrated in high-rise residential buildings in the city, the average household will consume less
energy [20]. Badoe et al. (2000) believe that in the process of urbanization, residents are more densely distributed and
the efficiency of the public transportation system is improved, which improving the consumption of transportation
energy [21]. He and Shu et al. (2017) believe that it is precisely because of the increase in urbanization that the
energy use efficiency in production and life has increased, which may lead to a decrease in carbon emissions [22].
Many scholars speculate that there should be an inverted U-shaped relationship between urbanization and economic
development and carbon dioxide emissions. But Sun H. (2012); Shu and Li (2018) fails to confirm the inverted
U-shaped relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions based on Chinese provincial panel data [23,24].
The industrial structure affects the carbon emissions. How to restrict the continued expansion of high energy-
consuming industries and promote industrial reform has been the country’s main concern in recent years. Qiu
L. and Xu H. (2018) construct Chinese energy–economy–environment hybrid model based on KAYA identity
and general equilibrium model (CGE). Taking industrial structure, foreign trade degree and energy intensity as
simulation variables, they simulate the sensitivity of adjustment of different policy variables to the change of
energy economic structure and the effectiveness of each variable on carbon emissions reduction cost. The results
show that the adjustment of the proportion of the total secondary industry in GDP has a significant impact on
the energy and environment [25]. Lin B. and Xu B (2018, 2019, 2020) believe that China is still in a rapidly
advancing industrialization stage. For the industrial industry is a high energy-consuming sector, the large scale of
the industry will inevitably consume a large amount of fossil energy, which will lead to the continuous growth of
carbon emissions. They also confirm that industrial structure and energy structure are important factors affecting
carbon emissions. Among them, the energy consumption intensity of each industry is significantly different, and
the energy intensity of the primary industry and the tertiary industry are much lower than that of the secondary
industry [26–28].
Scholars use a variety of technologies to study the influencing factors of carbon emissions, and the first
technology used is factor decomposition. The Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) proposed by Ang (2004) can
decompose all factors without residuals, and the result does not include unexplainable residuals [29]. Afterwards,
many scholars have decomposed carbon emissions based on this method and analyze the mechanism of each
important factor affecting carbon emission (Lin B. and Jiang Z., 2009; Margarita and Victor, 2013) [30,31].
Compared with the “EKC” hypothesis which directly explores the impact of various related factors on carbon
emissions, some scholars believe that the Granger Causality Tests is more reasonable to analyze the feedback
mechanism between related factors and carbon emissions. Shahbaz et al. (2013), Ozturk et al. (2013) and Xiong
(2017) used panel data to analyze the causal relationship between economic development and carbon emissions
in Indonesia, Turkey and China, but the results of the studies are not the same [32–34]. The premise of the
panel analysis framework is to assume that the research objects have the same development trajectory, while this
hypothesis is not satisfied in real society. Time series contains time trend information between variables. According
to the characteristics of regional development, Zhao Z and Chen J. et al. (2018) conduct bidirectional causality tests
between the per capita carbon emissions and economic development with long-term series by constructing a vector
autoregressive (VAR) model [35]]. Most of the existing studies assume that the relationship between economic
variables is linear. In fact, due to changes in the business cycle, economic phenomena often fluctuate, which leads
to non-linear relationships between economic variables. Lin B. and Xu B (2020) build a non-parametric additive
regression model with data-driven characteristics to investigate the non-linear effects of R&D investment on carbon
intensity and carbon emissions in the three major regions of the East, Central and West [28].
Most methods of the above studies are based on mean regression, which cannot intuitively and comprehensively
analyze the correlation between variables in the case of the probability distribution is asymmetric, abnormal, sharp
peak or thick tail etc., and QR theory can make up for the disadvantages of mean regression. Quantile regression
theory, proposed by Koenker and Bassett (1978), catch the impacts of the independent variable on the conditional
quantile of the dependent variable [36]. Huang Y and Zhu H. et al. (2020) structure quantile regression model to
study the heterogeneous impact of driving factors on the carbon emission intensity (CEI) of Chinese transportation
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sector. The empirical results show that the economic development has a positive impact on carbon emission intensity
at low quantiles, while a negative impact at high quantiles. In addition, the research results show that the economic
development and CEI are in an inverted U-shaped pattern at low quantiles, which verifies the EKC hypothesis
for low CEI provinces [37]. Ren Y. et al. (2020) elaborate on the direct and indirect effects of democracy on CO2
emissions in the BRICS countries from 1992 to 2018. In view of the heterogeneity of the CO2 emissions distribution,
the nuclear density function of the CO2 emissions is estimated through quantile fitting values. The results show
that the direct impact of democracy on carbon emissions is a significant negative impact in the countries with high
CO2 emissions. The indirect impact of democracy is positive in China, but negative in Brazil and South Africa,
but the overall impact of democracy on carbon emissions is still negative in all BRIC countries [38]. Lin B. et al.
(2018) use quantile method to examine the effects of per capita GDP, carbon intensity, energy intensity, and total
population on carbon emissions in Chinese transportation industry. The results show that the impacts of independent
variables are not constant dependent variables across the entire range of carbon emissions [39]. Unlike GDP, energy
intensity, urbanization, and carbon intensity have inconsistent impacts within the range of carbon emissions. Among
all quantiles, carbon intensity has the greatest impact on carbon emissions in Chinese metallurgy industry, followed
by energy intensity, labor productivity, industrial structure, and energy structure (Lin B. et al. 2020) [40].
This study constructs a QR model to determine the effects of Chinese economic growth rate, urbanization level
and deindustrialization level on carbon emissions across different levels of carbon emissions, providing reference
for promoting social development and building environmentally friendly coexistence.

3. Methodology
Quantile regression (QR) theory provides a method for estimating the asymmetrical relationship between
variables. In economics and finance, most series show non-normal distribution characteristics such as skewness,
volatility clusters, peak and thick tail, while traditional regression models focus on the conditional mean of
the dependent variable and ignore the specificity of the tail. QR theory overcomes some of the limitations of
traditional regression, including the sensitivity to outliers, the necessity of normal distribution, and the treatment of
heteroscedasticity et al. In this theory, the influence of independent variable on the variation range and the shape of
conditional distribution of dependent variable is obtained by analyzing the correlation between independent variable
and conditional quantile of dependent variable [41]. Collecting the parameter estimates across quantiles can get a
more robustness and comprehensiveness description of the statistical characteristics in the conditional distribution.
The variable Y has a distribution function FY (y) = P(Y ≤ y). The τ conditional quantile of y expresses as
Q(τ ) = inf{y|F(y) ≥ τ }, 0 ≤ τ ≤ 1. Assuming the variable Y and independent variable matrix x follows a linear
distribution, and the QR model of Y in the τ conditional quantile is as follows:
Q (yi ) (τ |x) = α(τ ) + xi′ β(τ ) (1)
Among them, a(τ ) is the unobserved effect, and β(τ ) is the parameter estimation of independent variable matrix
under τ conditional quantile. In order to obtain the quantile estimation of the parameters, we need to calculate the
expected optimization problem of the loss function, that is minimizing the objective function. The QR method uses
the least weighted absolute deviation method to estimate the parameters. The standard QR estimate is defined as:
n
⌢
∑
β(τ ) = arg min ρτ (yi − α(τ ) − xi′ β(τ )) (2)
β
i=1

where the loss function ρτ (u) = u(τ − I (u < 0)).

Based on the EKC between per capita income and carbon emissions constructed by Lin BQ (2009), this study
selects the linear and quadratic terms of economic growth rate, urbanization level and deindustrialization level to
analyze the carbon EKC of economic growth rate, urbanization level, deindustrialization level. Meanwhile, referring
to the practices of Sun HH (2012), Huang TP (2020) and Tsai (2016) [12–21,42], we add the cross term of economic
growth rate, urbanization level and deindustrialization level to reflect the coordination effect among economic growth
rate, urbanization level and deindustrialization level. The model expression used in this study is as follows
CO2t = α + βG′ D P G D Pt + βG′′ D P G D Pt2 + βU′ R U Rt + βU′′ R U Rt2 t + β D′ E I N D Deindt + β D′′ E I N D Deind2t
(3)
c
+βG·U G D Pt · U Rt + βG·D
c
G D Pt · Deindt + βUc ·D U Rt · Deind + µt
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Among them, CO2 means carbon emissions (kt), GDP means the economic growth rate (%), expressed in terms of
gross domestic product per capita growth, UR means urbanization level (%), that is, the ratio of urban population to
total population, and Deind means deindustrialization level (%), is the ratio of the output value of the non-industrial
industry to the gross domestic product. G D P 2 , U R 2 and Deind2 represent the square of GDP, UR and Deind. This
study differs from the above-mentioned literatures in the following three points: (1) The selected indicator meaning
economic development level is the growth rate rather than its absolute value. Human society has been progressing,
and the level of economic development is mostly in a state of uneven rise. It may cause spurious regression with
uneven time series data, and it also may change initial economic significance with differential data. Panel data is
mostly stable, but the premise of the panel analysis framework is that the research objects have the same changing
trajectory. Time series can better analyze the relationship between variable values. For this, we choose the economic
growth rate to represent the degree of economic development. (2) This study introduces the level of non-industrial
development and analyzes the impacts of industrial upgrading on carbon emissions from another perspective. (3)
Using the QR model to study the carbon EKC, we analyze the impacts of economic growth rate, urbanization level,
and deindustrialization level on carbon emissions at different levels of carbon emissions, and obtain the two-way
dynamic relationship between carbon dioxide and influencing factors.

4. Empirical analysis
This paper studies the impact of Chinese economic growth rate (GDP), urbanization level (UR), and deindustri-
alization level (Deind) on carbon emissions (CO2), the corresponding indicators are explained in Table 1. The data
comes from the World Bank website, the sample space is from 1961 to 2018, and all data are natural logarithmized.
The paper first performs descriptive statistics on the data to test the feasibility and necessity of quantile regression
for the selected time series.

Table 1. The definition and descriptive statistics of all the variables.

Variable Definition SD Skewness Kurtosis JB ADF
UR Urbanization level (% of total population) 0.426 0.309 1.64 5.301* −4.417***
Deind Deindustrialization level (% of GDP) 0.108 −1.475 4.453 25.690*** −2.772*
GDP GDP per capita growth (annual %) 4.994 −1.197 4.981 22.940*** −5.537***
CO2 Carbon dioxide emissions (kt) 0.978 −0.101 2.043 2.272 −3.443*
Note: ***, **, and * denote statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively.

In Table 1, the ADF test shows that all the series are stationary, so we can directly perform time series regression
analysis with original data. The JB test shows that all the UR, Deind, and GDP series reject the assumption of normal
distribution. In line with the skewness and kurtosis values, the distribution of Deind and GDP are left-skewed and fat
tails. According to the constructed QR model, Table 2 shows the parameter estimates and the degree of significance
at different quantiles, and the parameter estimates of each variable are asymmetrical at different quantiles. Fig. 1
describes the quantile estimation curve of each variable under the quantile regression model, which makes the
contents of Table 2 more intuitive. The abscissa is the quantile point, and the ordinate is the estimated value. Fig.
(a–c) show the parameter estimates of the linear term and quadratic terms of GDP, UR and Deind, respectively, and
fig. (d) shows the parameter value of the cross terms of GDP, UR and Deind. The bold part in the figure means
rejecting the null hypothesis with a significance level of 1%, 5%, or 10%. Combining Table 2 and Fig. 1, we get
the asymmetric impacts of Economic Growth, Urbanization and Deindustrialization on Carbon Emissions.
(1) The linear curve relationship between the economic growth rate and carbon emissions. The coefficient of the
linear term of GDP is significantly positive above the high quantiles (>=90th), while the coefficient of the quadratic
term is significantly positive at the extremely low quantile (5th). The estimated value of the quadratic term is much
smaller than the coefficient of the linear term, so we think that the economic growth rate and carbon emissions
do not have an inverted U-shaped EKC relationship. In the stage of large carbon emissions, the acceleration of
economic development will significantly promote carbon emissions, and each increase in the economic growth rate
by one percentage point will result in carbon emissions increases by nearly one unit. In the stage of extremely low
carbon emissions, the economic growth rate promotes carbon emissions, but the positive effect is not large.
When carbon emissions are too large, it means that this period is extensive economic development, and economic
growth promotes a large amount of carbon emissions. If the rapid economic development is still maintained at this
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Table 2. Parameter estimation value across quantiles of carbon emissions.

Parameters 5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th
βG′ D P 0.253 0.105 0.658 0.932 0.737 0.852* 0.892***
βG′′ D P 0.001** 0.001 −0.001 −0.001 0.000 0.000 −0.001
βU′ R −19.009*** −15.473*** −13.967** −9.523 −5.192 −2.93 −1.006
βU′′ R 0.944*** 1.039*** 0.888*** 0.654** 0.449 0.307 0.497
βD′
EIND 114.988* 94.948 95.384 146.59* 189.491** 195.786** 240.034**
βD′′
EIND −16.124** −13.259 −13.06 −18.928** −23.992** −24.661*** −29.707***
βG·U
c
0.012 0.011 0.006 0.000 −0.022 −0.035 −0.015
βG·D
c
−0.074 −0.036 −0.162 −0.225 −0.166 −0.184* −0.206**
βUc ·D 3.576*** 2.545* 2.423 1.712 1.021 0.724 −0.123
Note: ***, **, and * denote statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively.

Fig. 1. The quantile regression curve.

time, the negative economic benefit of the scale effect in the extensive economic development will dominate, leading
to high carbon emissions as the economic growth rate increases at this time. When carbon emissions remain at a
normal level or even lower than usual, we believe that carbon emissions may have been effectively controlled
within a reasonable range at this time, and the increase in economic growth will not have a significant impact on
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carbon emissions, because when the economic development reaches a certain level, variable negative effects from
the economic growth rate can always be offset by refined management.
(2) U-shaped curve relationship between urbanization level and carbon emissions. The linear coefficient of UR is
significantly negative below the middle and low quantiles (<=25th), while the quadratic coefficient is significantly
positive below the middle quantiles (<=50th), indicating that in the period of low carbon emissions, the increase
in the level of urbanization significantly reduces carbon emissions. As carbon emissions increase, the increase in
urbanization levels increases carbon emissions. At this time, the level of urbanization and carbon emissions have a
U-shaped curve relationship. When carbon emissions increase above the normal level, there is no significant linear
or quadratic relationship between the level of urbanization and carbon dioxide emissions.
When carbon emissions remain at a normal level or even lower than usual, it may be that the current economic
backwardness and low energy consumption make carbon emissions lower or that carbon emissions have been
effectively controlled. When the urbanization level is low, the technological improvement and rational allocation
brought about by urbanization will reduce carbon emissions. and with the increase of carbon emissions, the increase
in fuel consumption and electric power consumption result from the further increase the urbanization level will
increase in carbon emissions. In this period time, the negative economic benefit arise from urbanization will surpass
the positive economic benefit.
(3) The relationship between the deindustrialization level and carbon emissions is an inverted U-shaped curve.
Except for the middle and low quantiles (10th–25th), the linear coefficient of Deind is significantly positive at the
extremely low quantile (5th) and above the middle quantiles (50th), while the quadratic coefficient is significantly
negative at the same quantiles, which means that in the period when carbon emissions are extremely low, the
increase in the level of deindustrialization promotes carbon emissions. As carbon emissions increase above the
usual situation, the increase in the level of deindustrialization begins to significantly inhibit carbon emissions. The
above results show that in most cases, the deindustrialization level and carbon emissions have an inverted U-shaped
EKC relationship.
In the low carbon emissions stage, that is, the economic development is extremely backward or the carbon
emissions is controllable. In the first situation, extensive and artificial agricultural development will lead to energy
waste and increase carbon emissions. In the second situation, society may be at a stage of enjoying the fruits of
economic development at this time, the level of deindustrialization has increased, and the high consumption brought
about by hedonism has increased carbon emissions. At the stage of large carbon emissions, society may be in a
period of extensive industrial development. Industry drives the economy to speed up but also causes environmental
pollution to the society. The increase in the proportion of primary and tertiary industries reduces energy consumption
and directly reduces carbon emissions.
(4) The coordination effect among the deindustrialization level, the economic growth rate and the urbanization
level. The estimated coefficient of the cross term of Deind and GDP is significantly negative above the high
quantiles (>=90th), and the estimated coefficient of the cross term of Deind and UR is significantly positive below
the low quantiles (<=10th), indicating that During periods of high carbon emissions, the increase in the level of
deindustrialization reduces the promotion effect of economic growth rate on carbon emissions; During periods of
low carbon emissions, the increase in the deindustrialization level weakens the inhibitory effect of the urbanization
level on carbon dioxide emissions.
In the stage of high carbon emissions, that is, economic development is dominated by industry, the adjustment and
optimization of the industrial structure can effectively alleviate the negative economic benefit of relying on industry
to promote economic development to a certain extent. When carbon emissions are extremely low, the increase in
the proportion of the primary and tertiary industries and the increase urbanization level indicate that the increase
in personal consumption capacity leads to an increase in energy consumption, which to some extent weakens the
inhibitory effect of the urbanization level on carbon emissions.

5. Robustness test
There are two ways to measure the level of carbon emissions. Here we use the total carbon emissions per capita
to replace the total carbon dioxide emissions in the empirical analysis. It can be seen from Table 3 that at each
quantile, the impacts of economic growth rate, urbanization level, and deindustrialization level on carbon emissions
are basically the same as the regression coefficient in significance of above empirical analysis, indicating that the
model constructed in the empirical part of this article is robust.
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Table 3. Parameter estimation across quantiles of carbon emissions per capita.

Parameters 5th 10th 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th
βG′ D P −0.026 −0.022 0.435 0.703 0.853* 0.837** 0.883***
βG′′ D P 0.001* 0.001 −0.001 −0.001 −0.001 −0.001 −0.001
βU′ R −16.645*** −12.936** −12.846** −7.458 −4.54 −1.959 −0.461
βU′′ R 1.108*** 1.243*** 1.078*** 0.933*** 0.926* 0.648* 0.73*
βD′
EIND 50.638 49.189 54.041 115.596 201.85* 201.955** 217.152***
βD′′
EIND −7.688 −7.108 −7.609 −14.641* −24.928* −24.883*** −26.557***
βG·U
c
0.023 0.011 0.013 0.002 0.001 −0.008 −0.009
βG·D
c
−0.012 −0.004 −0.112 −0.17 −0.207* −0.198** −0.208***
βUc ·D 2.59** 1.472 1.711 0.628 −0.105 −0.251 −0.758
Note: ***, **, and * denote statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively.

6. Conclusion
Based on the QR model, this paper analyzes the effects of Chinese economic growth, urbanization, and
deindustrialization on carbon emissions under different levels of carbon emissions, and the following conclusions
are obtained.
Firstly, in the stage of large carbon emissions, the economic growth rate and carbon emissions have a positive
linear curve relationship. The negative economic benefit of the scale effect in the extensive economic development
will dominate in the stage, leading to high carbon emissions as the economic growth rate increases at this time.
Secondly, when carbon emissions remain at a normal level or even lower than usual, the urbanization level and
carbon emissions have a U-shaped curve relationship. In the stage, the technological upgrading and rationalization
brought about by urbanization have improved resource utilization. With the increase of the urbanization level,
the higher energy consumption exceeds the positive economic benefit. Thirdly, there exists an inverted U-shaped
relationship between the deindustrialization and carbon emissions. In the stage of low carbon emissions, agriculture
as the leading industry will cause energy waste. In the industrial age, the increase in the proportion of primary and
tertiary industries reduces energy consumption directly. Lastly, in the period of extremely large carbon emissions,
the increase in the deindustrialization level reduces the promotion effect of economic growth on carbon emissions
though alleviating the negative economic benefit of the industry development. In the period of low carbon emissions,
the increase in deindustrialization level has weakened the inhibitory effect of the urbanization on carbon emissions
because of the high personal consumption.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could
have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments
This research is partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the Grant No.
71671062.

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