Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

A dynamic analysis of air pollution emissions in China: Evidence from

nonparametric additive regression models
Bin Xu a,b , Liangqing Luo a,b , Boqiang Lin c,∗
a
School of Statistics, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330013, PR China
b
Research Center of Applied Statistics, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330013, PR China
c
Collaborative Innovation Center for Energy Economics and Energy Policy, China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian
361005, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: PM2.5 emissions not only have serious adverse health effects, but also impede transportation activities,
Received 20 May 2015 especially in air and highway transport. As a result, PM2.5 emissions have become a public policy con-
Received in revised form 5 October 2015 cern in China in recent years. Currently, the vast majority of existing researches on PM2.5 are based on
Accepted 10 November 2015
natural science perspective. Very few economic studies on the subject have been conducted with linear
Available online 11 January 2016
models. This paper adopts provincial panel data from 2001 to 2012, and uses the STIRPAT model and
nonparametric additive regression models to examine the key driving forces of PM2.5 emissions in China.
Keywords:
The results show that the nonlinear effect of economic growth on PM2.5 emissions is consistent with
PM2.5 emissions
STIRPAT model
the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. The nonlinear impact of urbanization exhibits an
Nonparametric additive regression models inverted “U-shaped” pattern due to the rapid development of urban real estate in the early stages and
the strengthening of environmental protection measures in the latter stage. Coal consumption follows
an inverted “U-shaped” relationship with PM2.5 emissions owing to massive coal consumption at the
beginning and efforts to optimize the energy structure as well as technological progress in clean energy
in the latter stages. The nonlinear inverted “U-shaped” impact of private vehicles may be due to the
different roles of scale, structural and technical effects at different stages. However, energy efficiency
improvement follows a positive “U-shaped” pattern in relation to PM2.5 emissions because of differences
in the scale of the economy and the speed of technological progress at different times. As a result, the
differential dynamic effects of the driving forces of PM2.5 emissions at different times should be taken
into consideration when initiating policies to reduce PM2.5 emissions in China.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
China is currently in a rapid urbanization and industrializa-
tion process (Xue et al., 2015). There is rapid increase in the
number of motor vehicles as well as energy consumption (e.g.,
coal), coupled with large-scale fixed asset building activities (Zhang
and Cao, 2015). These activities are exposing China to large-
scale, severe and persistent air pollution problems (Meng et al.,
2015). Numerous studies have demonstrated that PM2.5 (fine par-
ticles) is the main cause of air pollution (Wang et al., 2015a).
PM2.5 not only includes many small particles such as organic
∗ Corresponding author. Collaborative Innovation Center for Energy Economics
and Energy Policy, China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy, Xiamen University,
Fujian, 361005, China. Tel.: +86 5922186076; fax: +86 5922186075.
E-mail addresses: bqlin@xmu.edu.cn, bqlin2004@vip.sina.com (B. Lin).
carbon, nitrates, ammonium salts and sulfates, but also includes
various metal elements such as sodium, magnesium, calcium, alu-
minum, zinc, arsenic, cadmium and copper (Zhao et al., 2014;
Huang et al., 2014). These small particles are easily inhaled,
and may pose health risks by contaminating the blood (Yang
et al., 2013). PM2.5 pollution caused about 1.25 million deaths
in China in 2010, accounting for nearly 40% of the global total
premature deaths (Wang et al., 2012). Therefore, PM2.5 emis-
sions have become an urgent issue of public concern in recent
years.
PM2.5 emissions have been analyzed extensively in the literature
(Mallia et al., 2015; Mardones and Sanhueza, 2015; Meng et al.,
2015; Zhang and Cao, 2015). Most of the existing studies only use
linear models to analyze the influences of the driving forces of PM2.5
emissions. In fact, there are a large number of linear and nonlinear
relationships between economic variables (Catalano and Figliola,
2015).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.11.012
1470-160X/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358
The paper is concerned with the impacts of the driving forces of
PM2.5 emissions in China at the aggregate level. Using a panel data
set covering 29 provinces over the period 2001–2012, we employ
the STIRPAT model and nonparametric additive regression models
to explore the effects of the influencing factors of PM2.5 emissions
in China. Non-parametric additive can capture the linear and non-
linear links between economic variables.
The remaining parts of the paper are organized as follows. Sec-
tion 2 briefly reviews the related literature and previous studies
on PM2.5 emissions. Section 3 describes the applied method and
the model. Section 4 presents the empirical results. Section 5 dis-
cusses the results of the empirical analysis. Conclusions and policy
suggestions are provided in Section 6.
2. Literature review
PM2.5 pollution is a natural phenomenon, but it is a man-made
contamination caused by human economic activities (Mardones
and Sanhueza, 2015). Therefore, from an economic and social point
of view, analyzing the main driving forces of PM2.5 emissions is con-
ducive for reducing PM2.5 emissions and stemming its hazardous
impacts on human health. The existing literature has extensively
studied PM2.5 emissions with different methods.
Firstly, the classical method is structural decomposition analy-
sis. PM2.5 emissions are decomposed into economic growth, capital
formation, exports, production structure and emission intensity.
Guan et al. (2014) research PM2.5 emissions growth in China by
analyzing economic growth, fixed asset investment and exports,
and Djalalova et al. (2010) extend the research to emission inten-
sity and decompose PM2.5 emissions into energy intensity, energy
structure and conversion efficiency for Europe. The second method
is bottom-up sector-based analysis. Zhang et al. (2015) investigate
PM2.5 pollutants emissions in the metropolis using a top-down
approach. Liu et al. (2014) develop an integrated assessment model
to analyze air pollutants from China’s iron and steel industry, and
find that command-and-control instrument has excellent impact
in controlling pollutants emissions. The method is also used in
the study of energy consumption (Cai et al., 2015; Farzan et al.,
2015) and CO2 emissions (Zhang and Chen, 2014; Tang et al., 2015).
The third method is dynamic factor analysis (DFA). It has been
widely applied in the analysis of the influencing factors of air pol-
lutants (Shi et al., 2008; Ielpo et al., 2013; Yu et al., 2015) and
in forecasting macroeconomic variables (Brauning and Koopman,
2014; Palardy and Ovaska, 2015). The fourth method is economet-
ric model. Using panel econometric models, Loftus et al. (2015)
study PM2.5 emissions in American agricultural areas; Olson and
Burke (2006) research the seasonal variation and factors of PM2.5
emissions; and Sica and Susnik (2014) investigate the relationships
between economic growth and PM2.5 contaminants with provin-
cial data in Italy. Patel et al. (2013), Bozlaker et al. (2014) and Shen
et al. (2014) examine the effects of different means of transport
on PM2.5 emissions, and found the extensive use of motor vehicles
has become one of the main sources of PM2.5 emissions. Khan et al.
(2015) determine the major factors of PM2.5 emissions using time
series models.
Though PM2.5 emissions have been discussed extensively in the
literature, there is a major shortcoming. In other words, most of
these studies only use linear models to analyze the influence of the
driving forces of PM2.5 emissions. Nonlinear relationships embod-
ied in economic variables are largely ignored. Granger (1988)
pointed out that the world is almost certainly constituted by non-
linear relationships. In this paper, we investigate the linear and
nonlinear effects of the influencing factors of PM2.5 emissions using
nonparametric additive regression model, since it can capture the
linear and nonlinear linkages between economic variables.
347
3. Methodology and model specification
3.1. Nonparametric additive regression models
Nonlinear thinking refers to a kind of thinking that differs from
linear thinking. That is, it looks at things from an unconventional
perspective, such as systems thinking, fuzzy thinking and so on
(Costigan and Brink, 2015). It probably will not follow normal log-
ical thinking.
In a system, if the output is not proportional to its input, it is non-
linear. In fact, almost all known systems, regardless of whether they
are natural sciences or social sciences, are non-linear, if the input
amount is large enough (Islam et al., 2015). Therefore, non-linear
systems are much more than linear systems. The real world has
always been a non-linear system, and a linear system is only an
approximate simulation (Cheung et al., 2015). For a nonlinear sys-
tem, even a small disturbance, such as a small change in the initial
conditions, is likely to cause great difference in system behavior in
the next moment (Ide and Wiggins, 2015).
Similarly, every 1% increase in urbanization, economic growth,
private cars, technological progress and coal consumption does
not guarantee the same amplitude changes in PM2.5 emissions.
That is, there may be non-linear relationships between these fac-
tors and PM2.5 emissions. This has been confirmed by numerous
studies (Sueyoshi and Yuan, 2015; Salazar et al., 2011; Ning et al.,
2015; Zhou et al., 2014). Nonparametric regression model is a
data-driven model, and the relationships between the variables
are portrayed by the sample data itself (Lee and Robinson, 2015).
Compared to the linear models, the advantages of nonparametric
additive regression model are obvious. First, it does not require
pre-set relationships between the variables, and the regression
functional form is not constrained (Curtis et al., 2014). Second,
it has strong adaptability and high robustness, and the specific
forms of the regression models are completely determined by the
sample data itself, i.e., the non-parametric regression models are
data-driven models (Piegorsch et al., 2014). Third, for non-linear
non-homogeneous problems, non-parametric regression models
have very good simulation results (Zhou et al., 2011). Fourth, the
nonparametric additive regression models belong to a data-driven
model. It does not make any prior assumptions on the relation-
ships between economic variables. So there is a low possibility for
over-fitting problem in this model, which will reduce or destroy the
generalization ability of the model application (Farias et al., 2013).
Consequently, we employ nonparametric additive regression mod-
els to capture the linear and nonlinear impacts of the driving forces
of PM2.5 emissions in China in this paper.
Additive regression models were first proposed by Stone in
1985. In additive regression models, the dependent variable Yi (i = 1,
2, n) is the sum of arbitrary functions fj (j = 1, 2,. . .,p), which are the
functions of the independent variables Xi1 , Xi2 . . .,Xip , respectively.
Its specific form is:

p
Yi = f (xij ) + i , i ∼iid(0,  2 ) (1)
j=1
where f (xi ) is a nonparametric function and can be estimated
with nonparametric regression methods. In order to make the
estimation feasible, it is assumed that E(fj ) = 0 (j = 1, 2,. . .,p) and
fj are smooth. In addition, the additive regression models can be
expressed as:

p
E(Yi |xi1 , xi2 , . . ., xip ) = f (xij ) (2)
j=1
From Eq. (2), it can be seen that additive regression model is an
improvement on linear models, where each explanatory variable is
348 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358
represented with more general form fj (xij ) rather than traditional
linear form ˇi xi . Once the additive regression models are used to
fit the data, we can obtain p parallel functions that can be used to
explain and predict the dependent variable.
In order to provide a more visual interpretation of the effects of
the influencing factors of PM2.5 emissions, and better connect and
compare with the existing results obtained with linear regression
models, the linear part is added to the additive regression models
as follow:

p

p below:
E(Yi |xi1 , xi2 , . . ., xip ) = a + ˇj xij + fj (xij )
j=1 j=1
where a and ˇi are the parameters of linear regression. Other parts
are the same as in Eq. (2).
Since the additive regression models have been widely used in
economic (Linton and Hardle, 1996), political (Beck and Jackman,
1998), medical (Piegorsch et al., 2014) and environmental fields
(Schwartz, 1994; Stauch and Jarvis, 2006; Gupta, 2012), many
scholars have devoted time to research the estimation meth-
ods for additive regression models. Taking into account that the
back-fitting algorithm has the advantages of ingenious iterative
methods and simplified calculation, this paper utilizes it to per-
form the parameter estimation. The back-fitting algorithm is briefly
described as follows:
If the linear part of Eq. (3) is taken p as a special nonpara-
metric function, denoted by g(xi )↔a + ˇ x , the estimations
j=1 j ij
reduce to estimating the function g(·) and fj (·). When one fi is
estimated, assuming other fj (·) and g(·) 
are known, the partial resid-
ual can be defined as rik = yi − g(xi ) − f (x ). By minimizing
/ k k ik
j=
the partial residual, we can get f̂k (xik ) = E(rik |xi ). Continuously
repeating the above estimation process, we obtain the estimated
values f̂1 , f̂2 , . . ., f̂p . Similarly, assuming all fj are fixed, we can
ˆ when estimating g(xi ). The specific
get the optimal estimate ˇ
estimation procedure is as follows. First, there is need to initial-
ize the functions ĝ 0 (xi ), f̂10 (xi1 ), f̂20 (xi2 ), . . ., f̂p0 (xip ). Assuming g(xi )
and f̂20 (xi2 ), . . ., f̂p0 (xip ) are fixed, we can obtain f̂12 (xi1 ) through the
above estimation method. Second, repeating the above estimation
process, we can further obtain ĝ 1 (xi ), f̂11 (xi1 ), f̂21 (xi2 ), . . ., f̂p1 (xip ).
We continually perform the above iterative process until RSS =
n  p 2
i=1
yj − g(xi ) − f (x )
j=1 j ij
reaches the preset convergence
criteria. Finally, we get the parameter estimates of the linear part
and the nonparametric functions in Eq. (3).
3.2. Model specification
The IPAT identity (I = PAT) (Eq. (4)) is often used as a basis for
investigating the role of the various factors driving environmental
pollution (Chertow, 2001):
I =P·A·T
where I represents the emission level of a pollutant, P denotes the
population size, A represents a country’s affluence and T is tech-
nological progress. In order to fully examine the factors affecting
environmental change, the IPAT model is simple and has limita-
tions. First, the IPAT model is just a mathematical formula, which
cannot directly test the hypothesis on how the various factors affect
environmental change (Li and Yuan, 2014; Tursun et al., 2015).
Second, the IPAT model simply assumes that the elasticities of
population, prosperity and technology on environment change are
unity, which is in conflict with the EKC hypothesis (Huo et al., 2015;
Wang and Zhao, 2015). Thus, using this model as a basis, Dietz and
Rosa (1997) proposed the STIRPAT model as follows:
It = aPtb Act Ttd et
where a represents the intercept term, P, A and T are the same as in
Eq. (4), b, c and d represent the elasticities of environmental impacts
with respect to P, A and T respectively, et is the random disturbance
and the subscript t denotes the year as it is an annual data analy-
sis. The STIRPAT model has been applied to analyze the influence
of the impacting factors of environmental pollution (Wang et al.,
2011; Liddle, 2013; Xu and Lin, 2015a). In order to eliminate pos-
sible heteroscedasticity, all variables take logarithmic form. Given
the panel data of 29 Chinese provinces, Eq. (5) can be written as
(3)
LIit = La + b(LPit ) + c(LAit ) + d(LTit ) + eit (6)
where P represents population size (104 persons), A is measured by
the per capita GDP (RMB), T is a technology index and is measured
by energy intensity (ton of energy use per 104 yuan) and i denotes
the province as we conduct a regional analysis. In order to inves-
tigate the impacts of the driving forces of China’s PM2.5 emissions,
Eq. (6) can be rewritten as follows:
LPM2.5it = La + b(LPOPit ) + c(LGDPit ) + d(LEIit ) + eit (7)
where PM2.5 represents PM2.5 emissions intensity in China (micro-
grams per cubic meter-␮g/m3 ), POP is population size (104
persons), and GDP denotes economic development level measured
in real per capita GDP of 2001 constant yuan. EI represents energy
intensity and is proxied by energy consumption divided by total
outputs (ton of energy use per 104 yuan). This has been used to
identify the changes in pollution emissions by Lin and Du (2014),
Li and Lin (2015) and Shahbaz et al. (2015). A and e are the same as
in Eq. (6).
To further our analysis of the driving forces of China’s PM2.5
emissions, we expand the STIRPAT model by incorporating urban-
ization level, private vehicle inventory and coal consumption into
the model to take cognizance of the specific situation in China
for the following reasons. First, China is currently in a process of
rapid urbanization (Wang et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2014). It is pre-
dicted that by 2020 60% of the population will be living in urban
areas (Normile, 2008). It has been recognized that rapid urban-
ization would lead to an increase in PM2.5 emissions (Chan and
Yao, 2008; Niu et al., 2013). Consequently, it is very necessary to
introduce urbanization level (URB) into the model to analyze the
impact of urbanization on China’s PM2.5 emissions. Second, owing
to an increase in residents’ income in recent years, private vehi-
cle demand continues to rise. Private vehicle stock increased from
6.25 million units in 2000 to 88.39 million units in 2012 in China, an
average annual growth rate of 25%. The rapid growth of road vehi-
cles, particularly private cars, has resulted in continued increase
in energy consumption. For instance, total energy demand of the
transport sector was estimated to have increased from 57 million
tons of standard coal equivalent (Mtce) in 2000 to 86 Mtce in 2005,
(4) and private cars contributed nearly half of the demand growth (Yan
and Crookes, 2009). Moreover, private vehicle is widely acknowl-
edged as a major contributor to the increase in PM2.5 emissions
in China (Du et al., 2012; Walsh, 2014). Thus, we include pri-
vate vehicle population (PC) in the model. Finally, China is already
the current largest energy-consuming country in the world (since
2010) (Jiang and Lin, 2012). Moreover, China’s energy consump-
tion comes mainly from coal (Michieka and Fletcher, 2012) which
accounted for an average of 75% of China’s total energy consump-
tion over 1990–2013 period. China is already the world’s largest
coal consumer (Bloch et al., 2015) and coal will continue to be a
main source of China’s energy consumption for a long time (Li and
Leung, 2012). But coal combustion produces large quantities of pol-
lutants such as PM2.5 emissions, which have significant adverse
(5) impacts on the environment and health (Giere et al., 2006). Hence,
 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358 349

Table 1 3.3. Data source and description

Distribution of the 29 administrative regions in the three areas of China.

Area Administrative regions 3.3.1. Data source

Eastern Liaoning, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Tianjin, Fujian, The panel data set consists of cross-province observations for
Shandong, Hebei, Guangdong, Hainan, Beijing 29 provinces covering the period 2001–2012. The 29 administra-
Central Shanxi, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, tive regions are shown in Table 1. China provincial PM2.5 panel
Hunan, Neimenggu data (2001–2010) are obtained from Battelle Memorial Institute
Western Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai,
and the Center for International Earth Science Information Net-
Ningxia, Xinjiang, Guangxi
work (CIESIN) at Columbia University. The remaining provincial
PM2.5 panel data (2011–2012) are calculated based on the PM2.5
data compiled by the Chinese Environmental Monitoring Cen-
Table 2
Definition of all relevant variables used in the study. ter (CNEMC). The formula for provincial PM2.5 pollution is as
follows:
Variable Definition Units of measurement

PM2.5 PM2.5 emissions intensity ␮g per m3 k

GDP Per capita GDP Yuan i=1
PM2.5i × Si
EI Energy intensity Tce per 10,000 Yuan
PM2.5 = k (i = 1, 2, . . .K) (10)
S
i=1 i
URB Urbanization level Percent
PC Private vehicles inventory 104 units
COAL Coal consumption 104 tce where PM2.5 represents the annual average value of PM2.5 pollution
POP Population size 104 people
in one province, i means the ith city publishing PM2.5 data in one
Notes: The data of Tibet province is excluded due to incomplete data. The data for province, S denotes the size of the city area. The annual panel data
Chongqing Municipality is merged together with that of Sichuan Province.
of the other economic variables are collected from China Statisti-
cal Yearbook (2002–2013) and the provincial statistical yearbooks
(2002–2013). The definitions of the variables are shown in Table 2
coal consumption (COAL) is introduced into the econometric model and Table 3 shows the statistical description of all the variables in
in this study. the model.
Based on the above analysis and STIRPAT model, we establish
the econometric model of PM2.5 emissions in China as follows:
3.3.2. Data description
LPM2.5it = La + ˇ1 LPOPit + ˇ2 LGDPit + ˇ3 LEIit + ˇ4 LURBit Based on the annual data of the independent and dependent
variables, we analyze the relative changes in PM2.5 emissions, per
+ ˇ5 LPCit + ˇ6 LCOALit + it (8) capita GDP, energy intensity, private vehicle inventory, urbaniza-
tion level, coal consumption and population size in China over
where PM2.5 represents PM2.5 emissions intensity in China 2001–2012. As shown in Fig. 1, PM2.5 emissions showed a fluc-
(␮g/m3 ), POP, GDP and EI are the same as in Eq. (7), URB denotes tuating growth trend, and it reached the highest value (29.31 ␮g
urbanization level, and is measured by the percentage of urban per m3 ) in 2007. Energy intensity decreased significantly from
population to total population (%), PC represents private vehicle 16.69 tce per 10,000 yuan in 2001 to 8.64 tce per 10,000 yuan
inventory (104 units) and COAL indicates coal consumption (104 in 2012. Private car ownership had the highest average annual
standard coal equivalent). growth rate, at 25% over the sample period. Economic growth
Given that the priori model form could easily cause specification also showed rapid growth characteristics, with an average annual
bias, this paper uses the nonparametric additive regression mod- growth rate of 15%. Urbanization showed a steady growth trend
els to fit the dynamic impacts of the influencing factors of PM2.5 with the rate exceeding 50% since 2011. Numerous studies have
emissions. Specifically, we introduce the nonparametric part into confirmed that coal combustion is a major source of PM2.5 emis-
the econometric model (8) and take first differences of all variables sion since high-polluting coal has been the main source of energy
in the equation in order to eliminate the multicollinearity problem consumption for a long time. China’s total coal consumption con-
that may exist in the model (Xu and Lin, 2015b; Zhang and Liu, tinued to grow steadily, as the country has become the world’s
2015). Thus, model (8) becomes: largest coal consumer. As shown, the population size increased
from 1.276 billion people in 2001 to 1.354 billion people in
LPM2.5it = La + ˇ1 LPOPit + ˇ2 LGDPit + ˇ3 LEIit + ˇ4 LURBit + ˇ5 LPCit 2012, with the lowest growth rate of 0.54%. This is mainly due
to two reasons. First, the Chinese government has been imple-
+ˇ6 LCOALit + g1 (LPOPit ) + g2 (LGDPit ) + g3 (LEIit ) menting strict family planning policy. Second, rising costs of child
+ g4 (LURBit ) + g5 (LPCit ) + g6 (LCOALit ) + it (9) education and health care makes many families having fewer
children.

Table 3
The statistical description of the dependent and explanatory variables in the model.

Variable Units of measurement Mean Std. dev. Min Max

PM2.5 ␮g per m3 26.98 11.52 2.17 51.94

GDP Yuan 11,520.39 7644.34 3000.00 41,119.22
EI Tce per 10,000 yuan 1.34 0.82 0.17 4.35
URB Percent 41.89 15.27 16.24 89.76
PC 104 units 135.09 155.47 3.20 864.30
COAL 104 tce 6412.07 5749.71 53.60 30,110.91
POP 104 people 4496.64 2919.74 523.10 12,440.80
350 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358

30 17
PM2.5 EI
16
29
15

Tce per 10,000 yuan

14
28
ug per m3

13

12
27
11

26 10

25 8
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Time (Year) Time (Year)

54 9,000
URB PC
52 8,000

50 7,000

48 6,000

10,000 units
46 5,000
%

44 4,000

42 3,000

40 2,000

38 1,000

36 0
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Time (Year) Time (Year)

2,600 40
COAL GDP
2,400 36

2,200 32

2,000 28
1000 yuan
Million tce

1,800 24

1,600 20

1,400 16

1,200 12

1,000 8
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Time (Year) Time (Year)

136,000
POP
135,000

134,000

133,000
10,000 people

132,000

131,000

130,000

129,000

128,000

127,000
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
Time (Year)

Fig. 1. The trends of PM2.5 emissions, per capita GDP, energy intensity, urbanization level, private vehicle inventory, coal consumption and population size over 2001–2012.
 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358 351

Table 4
Results of panel unit root tests.

Series Fisher ADF Fisher PP IPS

Constant Trend and intercept Constant Trend and intercept Constant Trend and intercept

PM2.5 48.566 82.068** 44.867 113.858*** −4.990*** −2.452***

GDP 9.128 123.681*** 8.343 230.418*** 7.484 −5.174***
EI 3.115 74.232* 2.503 154.211*** 11.541 −1.721**
Levels URB 125.218*** 63.809 158.533*** 76.424** −18.463*** −12.066*
COAL 99.473*** 56.854 147.593*** 36.4855 −2.325*** 1.1049
PC 57.486 80.219** 35.306 92.128*** 3.864 −1.965
POP 21.002 50.787 37.261 70.373 5.113 0.7113

PM2.5 244.768*** 165.394*** 385.907*** 290.185*** −12.659*** −6.570***

GDP 268.856*** 232.336*** 362.086*** 328.565*** −13.751*** −8.372***
EI 158.579*** 132.337*** 200.554*** 210.076*** −7.685*** −4.262***
First difference URB 146.544*** 142.850*** 154.959*** 180.785*** −17.490*** −10.380***
COAL 140.156*** 151.395*** 143.754*** 200.853*** −6.181*** −5.866***
PC 198.377*** 165.546*** 220.059*** 244.752*** −9.954*** −6.110***
POP 116.091*** 128.478*** 130.400*** 290.326*** −4.053*** −2.634***

Note: Lags are all selected automatically by AIC and SC standard.

*
Represents p < 0.10.
**
Represents p < 0.05.
***
Represents p < 0.01.

Table 5
Testing for bivariate co-integration between PM2.5 emission and its influencing factors.

Test statistics COAL EI URB GDP PC POP

Panel v-statistic 1.160 0.699 0.157 0.530 1.233 −0.249

Panel rho-statistic −2.215** −2.309** −2.280** −2.254** −2.146** −2.238**
Panel PP-statistic −7.118*** −7.850*** −6.990*** −7.604 −7.170*** −7.383***
Panel ADF-statistic −7.490*** −8.136*** −7.387*** −7.821* −7.575*** −6.910***
Group rho-statistic 0.214 0.059 0.147 0.144 0.197 0.207
Group PP-statistic −10.427*** −9.928*** −8.710*** −9.565*** −9.192*** −9.345***
Group ADF-statistic −8.464*** −8.600*** −7.589*** −8.114*** −8.115*** −5.718***

Note: Lags are all selected automatically by AIC and SC standard.

*
Represents p < 0.10.
**
Represents p < 0.05.
***
Represents p < 0.01.

4. Empirical results
4.1. Unit root test and co-integration test
Generally speaking, most sequences of economic variables are
non-stationary. If a non-stationary sequence is used to conduct
a regression analysis, it would generate spurious regression. The
approach to non-stationary sequence is generally to transform it
into a stationary sequence so that the corresponding methodology
can be applied to conduct empirical analysis. The stability test of
the panel data is investigated using panel unit root test, and the
results are shown in Table 4. The results suggest that the major-
ity of the variables are non-stationary, but their first difference
series are stationary. Based on the panel data, all the indepen-
dent variables are bivariate-cointegrated with PM2.5 emissions
(Table 5). From Table 5, it can be seen that there is a significant co-
integration relationship between each independent variable and
PM2.5 emissions at confidence levels of 1%, 5% or 10%. Further-
more, based on the KAO panel test (Kao, 1999), the ADF (Augmented
Dickey-Fuller) stat (−5.437, p = 0.0000) and the HAC (heteroskedas-
ticity and autocorrelation-consistent) variance (0.008), there is
a co-integration relationships between PM2.5 emissions and all
explanatory variables.
4.2. Test the relationship between the independent and
dependent variables
The scatter chart visualizes the specific form of the relationship
between the independent and dependent variables. Using panel
data across 29 provinces, we obtain the scatter plot of the link
between PM2.5 emissions and its influencing factors. As shown in
Fig. 2, there are lots of linear and non-linear relationships between
PM2.5 emissions and its influencing factors (i.e., LCOAL, LEI, LURB,
LGDP, LPC and LPOP). It also verifies that investigating the effects of
the driving forces of PM2.5 emissions using nonparametric additive
regression model is reasonable and applicable.
4.3. Robustness test of nonparametric additive regression models
In order to confirm that the nonparametric additive regression
models used in this study is robust, this paper uses linear panel
data models to fit the sample data with the same dependent and
explanatory variables. The Hausman test result (21.859, p = 0.0013)
and Likelihood ratio test (230.719, p = 0.0000) suggest that the fixed
effects model is the appropriate model to analyze the effects of the
driving forces of PM2.5 emissions. Table 6 reports the estimation
results of the linear fixed effects model (Eq. (8)) and the linear part
of nonparametric additive regression models (Eq. (9)). It can be seen
that the conclusions of the nonparametric additive regression mod-
els is consistent with those of the linear fixed effects models, with
only a slight difference in the significance. The basic conclusions
however remain unchanged.
In order to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the
two estimation models, we calculate the residual sum of squares.
The results in Table 6 show that the residual sum of squares in the
nonparametric additive regression models is less than that in the
traditional linear panel data models. This indicates that the fitting
effects of the nonparametric additive regression models are better.
Based on the above results, there are reasons to believe that
the nonparametric additive regression models not only accurately
352 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358

grasp the linear relationship, but can also depict the nonlinear con-
tribution of the factors to PM2.5 emissions. More importantly, the
nonparametric additive regression models have better goodness
of fit than the traditional linear regression models. Therefore, we
employ it to implement the empirical analysis, making the results
more accurate and scientific.
4.4. Linear effects analysis
Table 6 provides the estimated results of the linear effects of
the driving forces of PM2.5 emissions. It can be seen that all the
estimated coefficients are statistically significant at the level of 1%,
5% or 10% (Eq. (9)).

4.0
LPM2.5
3.5
(LGDP_AN,LPM_AN) (LGDP_BJ,LPM_BJ)
(LGDP_FJ,LPM_FJ) (LGDP_GD,LPM_GD)
3.0
(LGDP_GS,LPM_GS) (LGDP_GUIZ,LPM_GUIZ)
(LGDP_GXI,LPM_GXI) (LGDP_HAIN,LPM_HAIN)
2.5 (LGDP_HEB,LPM_HEB) (LGDP_HENAN,LPM_HENAN)
(LGDP_HLJ,LPM_HLJ) (LGDP_HUB,LPM_HUB)
(LGDP_HUN,LPM_HUN) (LGDP_JIL,LPM_JIL)
2.0 (LGDP_JSU,LPM_JSU) (LGDP_JXI,LPM_JXI)
(LGDP_LIAON,LPM_LIAON) (LGDP_NMG,LPM_NMG)
1.5 (LGDP_NX,LPM_NX) (LGDP_QHAI,LPM_QHAI)
(LGDP_SC,LPM_SC) (LGDP_SHAI,LPM_SHAI)
(LGDP_SHAND,LPM_SHAND) (LGDP_SHANX,LPM_SHANX)
1.0 (LGDP_SHANXI,LPM_SHANXI) (LGDP_TJIN,LPM_TJIN)
(LGDP_XJ,LPM_XJ) (LGDP_YUN,LPM_YUN)
LGDP (LGDP_ZJ,LPM_ZJ)
0.5
7.5 8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5 10.0 10.5 11.0

4.0
LPM2.5

3.5
(LURB_AN,LPM_AN) (LURB_BJ,LPM_BJ)
(LURB_FJ,LPM_FJ) (LURB_GD,LPM_GD)
3.0 (LURB_GS,LPM_GS) (LURB_GUIZ,LPM_GUIZ)
(LURB_GXI,LPM_GXI) (LURB_HAIN,LPM_HAIN)
2.5 (LURB_HEB,LPM_HEB) (LURB_HENAN,LPM_HENAN)
(LURB_HLJ,LPM_HLJ) (LURB_HUB,LPM_HUB)
(LURB_HUN,LPM_HUN) (LURB_JIL,LPM_JIL)
2.0 (LURB_JSU,LPM_JSU) (LURB_JXI,LPM_JXI)
(LURB_LIAON,LPM_LIAON) (LURB_NMG,LPM_NMG)
(LURB_NX,LPM_NX) (LURB_QHAI,LPM_QHAI)
1.5
(LURB_SC,LPM_SC) (LURB_SHAI,LPM_SHAI)
(LURB_SHAND,LPM_SHAND) (LURB_SHANX,LPM_SHANX)
1.0 (LURB_SHANXI,LPM_SHANXI) (LURB_TJIN,LPM_TJIN)
(LURB_XJ,LPM_XJ) (LURB_YUN,LPM_YUN)
LURB (LURB_ZJ,LPM_ZJ)
0.5
2.4 2.8 3.2 3.6 4.0 4.4 4.8

4.0
LPM2.5
3.5
(LPC_AN,LPM_AN) (LPC_BJ,LPM_BJ)
(LPC_FJ,LPM_FJ) (LPC_GD,LPM_GD)
3.0
(LPC_GS,LPM_GS) (LPC_GUIZ,LPM_GUIZ)
(LPC_GXI,LPM_GXI) (LPC_HAIN,LPM_HAIN)
2.5 (LPC_HEB,LPM_HEB) (LPC_HENAN,LPM_HENAN)
(LPC_HLJ,LPM_HLJ) (LPC_HUB,LPM_HUB)
(LPC_HUN,LPM_HUN) (LPC_JIL,LPM_JIL)
2.0 (LPC_JSU,LPM_JSU) (LPC_JXI,LPM_JXI)
(LPC_LIAON,LPM_LIAON) (LPC_NMG,LPM_NMG)
1.5 (LPC_NX,LPM_NX) (LPC_QHAI,LPM_QHAI)
(LPC_SC,LPM_SC) (LPC_SHAI,LPM_SHAI)
(LPC_SHAND,LPM_SHAND) (LPC_SHANX,LPM_SHANX)
1.0 (LPC_SHANXI,LPM_SHANXI) (LPC_TJIN,LPM_TJIN)
(LPC_XJ,LPM_XJ) (LPC_YUN,LPM_YUN)
LPC (LPC_ZJ,LPM_ZJ)
0.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Fig. 2. Scatter chart of the relationships between PM2.5 emissions and its influencing factors (i.e., economic growth, urbanization, private cars, energy intensity, coal con-
sumption, population size). Notes: The scatter charts are drawn based on 29 provincial panel data (AH, BJ, FJ, GD, GS, GUIZ, GXI, HAIN, HEB, HENAN, HLJ, HUB, HUN, JIL, JSU,
JXI, LIAON, NMG, NX, QHAI, SC, SHAI, SHAND, SHANX, SHANXI, JJIN, XJ, YUN, ZJ represent Anhui, Beijing, Fujian, Guangdong, Gansu, Guizhou, Guangxi, Hainan, Hebei, Henan,
Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jilin, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Neimenggu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Sichuan, Shanghai, Shandong, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Jilin, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Zhejiang
provinces, respectively). Each line in the figure represents the relationship between two variables in a province. Therefore, each graph has 29 lines.
 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358 353

4.0

LPM2.5
3.5
(LEI_AN,LPM_AN) (LEI_BJ,LPM_BJ)
(LEI_FJ,LPM_FJ) (LEI_GD,LPM_GD)
3.0 (LEI_GS,LPM_GS) (LEI_GUIZ,LPM_GUIZ)
(LEI_GXI,LPM_GXI) (LEI_HAIN,LPM_HAIN)
2.5 (LEI_HEB,LPM_HEB) (LEI_HENAN,LPM_HENAN)
(LEI_HLJ,LPM_HLJ) (LEI_HUB,LPM_HUB)
(LEI_HUN,LPM_HUN) (LEI_JIL,LPM_JIL)
2.0 (LEI_JSU,LPM_JSU) (LEI_JXI,LPM_JXI)
(LEI_LIAON,LPM_LIAON) (LEI_NMG,LPM_NMG)
(LEI_NX,LPM_NX) (LEI_QHAI,LPM_QHAI)
1.5
(LEI_SC,LPM_SC) (LEI_SHAI,LPM_SHAI)
(LEI_SHAND,LPM_SHAND) (LEI_SHANX,LPM_SHANX)
1.0 (LEI_SHANXI,LPM_SHANXI) (LEI_TJIN,LPM_TJIN)
(LEI_XJ,LPM_XJ) (LEI_YUN,LPM_YUN)
LEI (LEI_ZJ,LPM_ZJ)
0.5
-2 -1 0 1 2

4.0
LPM2.5
3.5
(LCOAL_AN,LPM_AN) (LCOAL_BJ,LPM_BJ)
(LCOAL_FJ,LPM_FJ) (LCOAL_GD,LPM_GD)
3.0 (LCOAL_GS,LPM_GS) (LCOAL_GUIZ,LPM_GUIZ)
(LCOAL_GXI,LPM_GXI) (LCOAL_HAIN,LPM_HAIN)
2.5 (LCOAL_HEB,LPM_HEB) (LCOAL_HENAN,LPM_HENAN)
(LCOAL_HLJ,LPM_HLJ) (LCOAL_HUB,LPM_HUB)
(LCOAL_HUN,LPM_HUN) (LCOAL_JIL,LPM_JIL)
2.0 (LCOAL_JSU,LPM_JSU) (LCOAL_JXI,LPM_JXI)
(LCOAL_LIAON,LPM_LIAON) (LCOAL_NMG,LPM_NMG)
(LCOAL_NX,LPM_NX) (LCOAL_QHAI,LPM_QHAI)
1.5 (LCOAL_SC,LPM_SC) (LCOAL_SHAI,LPM_SHAI)
(LCOAL_SHAND,LPM_SHAND) (LCOAL_SHANX,LPM_SHANX)
1.0 (LCOAL_SHANXI,LPM_SHANXI) (LCOAL_TJIN,LPM_TJIN)
(LCOAL_XJ,LPM_XJ) (LCOAL_YUN,LPM_YUN)
LCOAL (LCOAL_ZJ,LPM_ZJ)
0.5
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

4.0
LPM2.5
3.5
(LPOP_AN,LPM_AN) (LPOP_BJ,LPM_BJ)
(LPOP_FJ,LPM_FJ) (LPOP_GD,LPM_GD)
3.0 (LPOP_GS,LPM_GS) (LPOP_GUIZ,LPM_GUIZ)
(LPOP_GXI,LPM_GXI) (LPOP_HAIN,LPM_HAIN)
2.5 (LPOP_HEB,LPM_HEB) (LPOP_HENAN,LPM_HENAN)
(LPOP_HLJ,LPM_HLJ) (LPOP_HUB,LPM_HUB)
(LPOP_HUN,LPM_HUN) (LPOP_JIL,LPM_JIL)
2.0 (LPOP_JSU,LPM_JSU) (LPOP_JXI,LPM_JXI)
(LPOP_LIAON,LPM_LIAON) (LPOP_NMG,LPM_NMG)
(LPOP_NX,LPM_NX) (LPOP_QHAI,LPM_QHAI)
1.5 (LPOP_SC,LPM_SC) (LPOP_SHAI,LPM_SHAI)
(LPOP_SHAND,LPM_SHAND) (LPOP_SHANX,LPM_SHANX)
1.0 (LPOP_SHANXI,LPM_SHANXI) (LPOP_TJIN,LPM_TJIN)
(LPOP_XJ,LPM_XJ) (LPOP_YUN,LPM_YUN)
LPOP (LPOP_ZJ,LPM_ZJ)
0.5
6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5

Fig. 2. (Continued ).

The elasticity of economic growth is the greatest (0.527), indi-
cating that economic activities are a major driver of PM2.5 emissions
in China. The estimated result is supported by Guan et al. (2014),
whose results reveal that economic development are a major con-
tributor to PM2.5 emissions growth. Economic growth increases
PM2.5 emissions mainly through the following two channels. First,
rapid economic growth requires a lot of energy (e.g., coal, electric-
ity), and China’s electrical energy is mainly sourced from thermal
power. Between 2001 and 2011, the average annual rate of ther-
mal power in total electricity was 72.6%, which requires large
amounts of coal. It is well known that coal combustion produces
large amounts of PM2.5 . The second factor has to do with changes in
China’s economic structure. In recent years, China’s secondary and
tertiary industries have been rapidly growing. The secondary indus-
try still accounts for nearly 50% of GDP (Gross domestic product)
over the study period, consuming lots of fossil fuels and emitting
354 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358

Table 6 4.5. Nonlinear effects analysis

Estimation results: linear part of nonparametric additive regression models and
linear fixed effects model during 2001–2012.
The estimated results of the nonlinear impacts of the driving
Variables Linear part of Linear fixed effects factors of PM2.5 emissions are shown in Fig. 3. All the explanatory
nonparametric additive model
variables are statistically significant at the confidence level of 10%
regression model
or higher.
LGDP 0.527** 0.611*** The nonlinear effects of economic growth on PM2.5 emissions
LEI −0.188*** −0.214***
show an inverted “U-shape” pattern, which supports the Envi-
LURB 0.429*** 0.560***
LPC 0.080*** 0.030 ronmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. This can be explained
LCOAL 0.095*** 0.078*** by the fact that in China’s early stages of economic growth, coal
LPOP 0.372*** 0.495*** energy accounted for a much greater proportion of total energy
Intercept 5.908*** −4.963***
consumption and thus produces more PM2.5 . With the optimiza-
R2 0.837 0.903
SSR 19.793 58.896 tion of the economic structure and the development of alternative
F-statistic – 59.912*** energy, PM2.5 emissions intensity is experiencing a gradual decline.
Observations 319 319 Energy intensity follows a positive “U-shaped” pattern in relation
Individuals 29 29 to PM2.5 emissions. This finding is consistent with Chang (2015).
SSR represents residual sum of squares. It indicates that technical progress can offset the negative envi-
**
Significant at 5% level. ronmental impact resulting from economic growth in the early
***
Significant at 1% level. stage. This effect disappears in the later stage of economic develop-
ment due to the limited technological progress and rapid increase
in total energy consumption (Recalde and Ramos-Martin, 2012).
The nonlinear influence of urbanization on PM2.5 emissions shows
large amounts of PM2.5 . Urbanization passes the t-test with elas- an inverted “U-shaped” pattern, meaning that in the early stages
ticity of 0.429. That is to say a 1% increase in urbanization level of urbanization, the emissions intensity of urbanization gradually
would lead to 0.429% increase in PM2.5 emissions when other fac- increased. However, when urbanization level surpasses a certain
tors remain constant. This means that urban development, rapid point, PM2.5 intensity of urbanization gradually declines. The non-
growth of urban population and diffusion expansion of urban area linear impact of private vehicles also shows an inverted “U-shaped”
lead to a rapid increase in PM2.5 emissions. This verifies the real pattern, suggesting that in the early stages of private car growth,
situation that urban areas are the main outbreak area of PM2.5 fossil fuel-powered private vehicles lead to a surge in PM2.5 emis-
emissions. The estimated results conform to the results of Lin et al. sions (scale effect). However, with the promotion of new energy
(2014a), Lin et al. (2014b), which showed that urban expansion is cars, electric vehicles and stringent emission standards of vehicle
primarily responsible for PM2.5 emissions growth. exhaust, PM2.5 emission intensity of private vehicles experience a
Coal consumption is significant with a coefficient of 0.095. A gradual decline (structure and technical effects). The relationship
1% growth in coal consumption would generate 0.095% increase between coal consumption and PM2.5 emissions shows an inverted
in PM2.5 emissions. China is now the world’s largest coal con- “U-shape” pattern. This result is in accordance with the findings of
sumer (Bhattacharya et al., 2015). According to the “World Energy Menegaki and Tsagarakis (2015). The growth rate of coal consump-
Statistics Yearbook”, the world’s total coal consumption was 6.79 tion was faster than the advancements in clean technologies in the
billion tons in 2014, and China accounted for 51.7% of total con- early stages, leading to a rapid increase in PM2.5 emissions (scale
sumption. Although, as China’s air pollution problem get worse, effect). But, this effect gradually disappears in the later stage due to
the government has introduced new policies and regulations, such increased R&D investment in clean energy technologies (technical
as enhancing the efficiency of coal-fired electricity generation and effect) and rising coal prices (Saboori and Sulaiman, 2013). Popu-
developing alternative energy and clean coal technologies. How- lation has a positive “U-shaped” influence on PM2.5 emissions. This
ever, it cannot significantly reduce PM2.5 emissions in the short result is supported by Lee et al. (2014). This implies that there are
term due to the huge coal consumption, and coal consumption low-intensity anthropogenic activities due to low income and small
will continue to be a major source of PM2.5 emissions (Chen et al., population in the early stages, so energy consumption and PM2.5
2015). The elasticity of private cars on PM2.5 emissions is posi- emissions are not intensive. However, with increase in income, resi-
tive (0.080%), indicating that private car exhaust emissions are a dents consume more energy (e.g., coal, electricity), construct more
major factor of PM2.5 pollution. With rising incomes and improve- buildings and buy more vehicles in recent years. This inevitably
ment in living standard, private car ownership is rapidly rising. leads to the rapid increase in PM2.5 emissions.
This will lead to an increase in PM2.5 emissions. Furthermore,
PM2.5 pollution is exacerbated by urban traffic congestion (Ercan
and Tatari, 2015). The negative sign of energy intensity indicates 5. Discussion
that higher energy efficiency is inclined to reduce PM2.5 emis-
sions, corroborating the work of Lin et al. (2015). In order to According to the above empirical results, we found several major
reduce PM2.5 emissions, the government has gradually introduced a phenomena.
series of measures, such as developing oil-gas hybrid, clean energy, The first finding is that the nonlinear effect of economic growth
and pure electric vehicle technologies. These measures will help on PM2.5 emissions demonstrates an inverted “U-shaped” pattern.
to mitigate PM2.5 emissions. Population has a positive relation- This finding is supported by Jiao et al. (2014) and Kasman and
ship with PM2.5 emissions. A 1% increase in population size leads Duman (2015). This can be explained by China’s economic devel-
to an increase of 0.372% in PM2.5 emissions. PM2.5 pollution is opment path. In the early stages of extensive economic growth,
mainly caused by anthropogenic activities, such as coal burning, China’s relied mainly on investment and exports (Sun et al., 2015;
large-scale infrastructure construction, straw burning and fire- Zhao and Tang, 2015). Expansion of investment and increase in
works during festivities (Seidel and Birnbaum, 2015; Dekoninck exports lead to an increase in PM2.5 emissions (Guan et al., 2014).
et al., 2015). The greater the population, the more intense anthro- Fixed asset investment activities generate a lot of PM2.5 emissions
pogenic economic activities will be. This will produce more PM2.5 (Panepinto et al., 2014). Building construction activities caused by
emissions. fixed assets investment yield large amounts of construction dust in
 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358
Fig. 3. The nonlinear effects of driving forces on PM2.5 emissions. Notes: Shaded areas correspond to 95% confidence intervals.
two main ways – building construction-related transport activities
and large areas of bare land. Dust is a major element in the forma-
tion of PM2.5 . From 2001 to 2012, the average annual growth rate
of fixed-asset investment in China was 23%, which leads to a rapid
increase in PM2.5 emissions. Also, high energy consumption associ-
ated with export production results in increase in PM2.5 emissions
(Guan et al., 2009). Since the reform and opening up, following
the international trade “comparative advantage” law, China vig-
orously develops labor-intensive industries (e.g., textiles, clothing
and primary products industries) and processing industries (e.g.,
electronic products) (Claro, 2006). These industries consume large
amounts of electrical energy. Because the vast majority of China’s
electrical energy comes from thermal power (Zhong et al., 2015),
it requires large amounts of coal consumption, which increase the
intensity of PM2.5 emissions (Kong et al., 2015). With further eco-
nomic development, the tertiary industry will be the main driving
force of economic growth (Zhang and Wang, 2013). This has been
confirmed by the history of economic development in developed
countries. The rapid development of the tertiary industry will offset
the effects of investment activities and exports on PM2.5 emissions.
Thus, economic growth helps to reduce PM2.5 emissions at the
later stage, which is consistent with the Environmental Kuznets
Curve.
The second finding is that energy efficiency improvement fol-
lows a positive “U-shaped” pattern in relation to PM2.5 emissions.
355
This finding has been proved by Chang (2015). The main reason is
that progressive energy-saving and clean energy technologies help
to reduce PM2.5 emissions in the early stages due to smaller pro-
duction activities (technical effect) (Xu et al., 2009). At this stage,
the number of manufacturers emitting dust and their production
scales are small. Thus, technology effect in favor of PM2.5 emissions
intensity decline at an early stage. As production scale in China
expands and there is limited room for technological progress, pro-
duction activities offset the influence of technological progress at
the later stage (scale effect) (Li and Lin, 2015). For example, the
average annual growth rate of the overall economy was 15.2% over
2001–2012, while that of technological progress was only 6%.
The third finding is that the nonlinear impact of urbanization
on PM2.5 emissions exhibits an inverted “U-shaped” pattern. This
finding is consistent with Zhu et al. (2012) and Wang et al. (2015b).
This is because in the early stages, rapid urbanization resulted in a
sharp increase in China’s urban population (Li et al., 2015), which
ultimately led to increase in demand for housing and rapid devel-
opment of urban real estates (Zhan, 2015). For instance, real estate
investment increased from 421.7 billion yuan in 2001 to 4937.4
billion yuan in 2012, an average annual growth of about 25%. It
is well known that housing construction and real estate activities
produce a lot of dust, and dust is the main element in the formation
of PM2.5 (Meng et al., 2015). Thus, large-scale construction activ-
ities caused by urbanization generate a lot PM2.5 . However, at a
356 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358
later stage, increasing environmental awareness and worsening air
pollution force the government to develop stringent measures to
control dust pollution from real estate construction (Schifano et al.,
2013). Some of these measures include ensuring that bare con-
struction sites are covered with vegetation and only clean-energy
transport vehicles are allowed on the road. Thus, PM2.5 pollution
intensity of urbanization gradually decreases.
The fourth finding is that coal consumption follows an inverted
“U-shaped” relationship with PM2.5 emissions. This finding is sup-
ported by Pao and Tsai (2010). In our opinion, it can be explained as
follows. In the early stages, most manufacturers ignored research
and use of clean coal technology, and residential energy consump-
tion mainly comes from highly polluting coal (Lin et al., 2014a,b).
According to the China Statistical Yearbook, the annual average
share of coal consumption in total energy consumption was about
75% from 1980 to 2006. This leads to a rapid increase in PM2.5
emissions (scale effect). With the continued rise in energy prices,
increasing public environmental awareness and increasingly strin-
gent government environmental regulations, on the one hand,
manufacturers take the initiative to optimize their energy con-
sumption structure and increase the proportion of non-polluting
hydroelectric, nuclear and natural gas consumption (composition
effect) (Zhao et al., 2012). The proportion of hydro, nuclear and
wind power in total energy increased from 7.9% in 2005 to 9.4% in
2012. Over the same period, the share of coal consumption declined
from 68.0% to 66.6%. On the other hand, since the prices of fossil
energy (e.g., coal and oil) are increasing, hydro and nuclear power
are increasingly being used relative to high-polluting coal (Zheng
et al., 2014). The share of electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, lique-
fied natural gas and natural gas in residential energy consumption
per capita increased from 65.3% in 2005 to 77.8% in 2012. Thus, at
the later stage, the effect of coal consumption on PM2.5 emissions
gradually declines.
The fifth finding is that the nonlinear impact of private vehicles
also shows an inverted “U-shaped” pattern. This result is supported
by Hua et al. (2010). In the early stages, more residents acquire
private cars as income grows. Therefore, there is a surge in the
number of private cars (Wu et al., 2014). According to the China
Statistical Yearbook, private car ownership increased from 0.29
million units in 1985 to 88.4 million units in 2012. Moreover, at
this stage, private cars are powered by fossil-fuel energy (e.g., gaso-
line and diesel oil), and motor vehicle emission standards are low
(Jin et al., 2015). This leads to a rapid increase in PM2.5 emissions.
With the surge in vehicle ownership, vehicle’s exhaust fumes have
become an important source of PM2.5 pollution (Lu and Cao, 2015).
Especially in some large cities (e.g., Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai),
automobile exhaust has become the largest contributor to PM2.5
pollution (Wang et al., 2015b). In order to reduce PM2.5 emissions,
the government adopts a series of measures to reduce PM2.5 pollu-
tion. Some of these measures include encouragement of research
and application of energy-saving technology, optimization of motor
vehicles’ energy structure, and improvement in vehicle exhaust
standards (Cao et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2015). Hence, the impact
of private cars on PM2.5 emissions gradually declines.
6. Conclusions and policy implications
Using panel data of 29 Chinese provinces during 2001–2012,
this paper explores the driving forces and reduction potentials of
China’s PM2.5 emissions using nonparametric additive regression
models. The nonlinear effect of economic growth on PM2.5 emis-
sions demonstrates an inverted “U-shaped” pattern due to the fact
that economic growth rely mainly on investment and exports in
the early stage and on domestic demand at the later stage. Energy
efficiency improvement follows a positive “U-shaped” pattern in
relation to PM2.5 emissions because of differences in the scale of
the economy and the speed of technological progress at different
times. The nonlinear impact of urbanization exhibits an inverted
“U-shaped” pattern on account of the rapid development of urban
real estate in the early stages and the strengthening of environ-
mental protection measures in the later stage. Coal consumption
follows an inverted “U-shaped” relationship with PM2.5 emissions
owing to massive coal consumption in the early stages and energy
structure optimization and technological progress in clean energy
in the later stage. Moreover, the nonlinear effect of private vehicles
also exhibits an inverted “U-shaped” pattern.
The above results have important policy implications. Firstly,
China should implement targeted measures to reduce PM2.5 emis-
sions at the different stages of economic growth. On one hand,
government should take measures to reduce building activities
– and fixed asset investment-related dust in the early stage of
economic development. This can be done by closing construction
sites, encouraging car wash-in-site system and construction site
watering. On the other hand, there is need to constantly opti-
mize export product structure, and reduce the proportion of high
energy-consuming export products. Some related policies such
as subsidizing high-tech export products and imposing levy on
high energy-consuming export products are crucial for mitigating
PM2.5 emissions associated with exports. In the later part of eco-
nomic development, China should reduce PM2.5 emissions from
the tertiary industry. In the tertiary industry, the transport sec-
tor is the most important sources of PM2.5 emissions. Therefore,
the government should take effective measures to reduce PM2.5
emissions from the transport sector by expanding new energy auto-
mobile consumption (electricity energy and bio-energy vehicles).
Secondly, energy-saving technology research and development
should be further strengthened. In order to improve energy effi-
ciency and reduce PM2.5 emissions, the government must improve
energy-saving technology using fiscal instruments such as the
establishment of energy-saving technology research centers in
local colleges and universities and supporting of enterprises to
engage in R&D of energy-saving technology through preferential
policies. Thirdly, different measures should be taken to reduce
PM2.5 emissions intensity of coal consumption at different stages.
In the early stages of coal consumption, the government should
encourage research and application of clean coal combustion tech-
nology to reduce PM2.5 emissions intensity. However, in the later
stages of coal consumption, the government should encourage the
use of alternative energy sources, such as nuclear, bio-energy and
gas energy. Finally, policies aimed at reducing PM2.5 emissions of
private cars should not be the same at different stages. Owing to the
fact that vehicle fuel technology is difficult to significantly improve
in the short term, the government should increase the use of alter-
native energy, such as oil and gas hybrid energy. In the long run,
given that the margin of improving automobile engine and refining
technology is limited, research and application of electric vehicle
technology should be strengthened while providing subsidies for
the purchase and use of new energy vehicles.
Acknowledgements
The paper is supported by Xiamen University–Newcastle Uni-
versity Joint Strategic Partnership Fund, the Grant for Collaborative
Innovation Center for Energy Economics and Energy Policy (No.
1260-Z0210011), Xiamen University Flourish Plan Special Fund-
ing (No. 1260-Y07200), and the China Sustainable Energy Program
(No. G-1506-23315), National Social Science Foundation of China
(No. 15BTJ022), the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(No. 71563014), Jiangxi Science and Technology Fund in Jiangxi
Province (No. GJJ14324), The Jiangxi Natural Science Foundation of
 B. Xu et al. / Ecological Indicators 63 (2016) 346–358
Jiangxi Province (No. 20142BAB201014; 20142BAB201010), Jiangxi
Soft Science projects in Jiangxi Province (No. 20151BBA10037), and
the monitoring, early warning and decision support of strategic
emerging industries fund in Jiangxi Province (No. 2015–07).
Appendix A.
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found,
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.
11.012.
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