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Advanced Research on Energy Economics and Environmental Efficiency
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Advanced Research on Energy Economics and Environmental Efficiency

A Special Issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) belonging to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2027 | Viewed by 1445

Editors

Dr. Yuexia Pang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Interests: renewable energy; energy policy; energy economics; renewable energy systems
Dr. Haonan Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Economic Management, North China Electric Power University, Baoding 071003, China
Interests: power transition

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Driven by the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, as well as sustainable development, the global energy landscape is undergoing profound changes. Energy economics and environmental efficiency not only affect energy resource allocation and market dynamics, but also relate to industrial competitiveness, technological innovation, and environmental quality.

This Special Issue welcomes original research papers and review articles related to energy economics and environmental efficiency. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: new energy policy synergy methods, electricity market synergy methods, integration of source–grid–load–storage systems, demand-side management strategies, green efficiency modeling, low-carbon policy evaluation, new energy investment, and energy efficiency.

The current research focus has shifted from evaluating energy and environmental efficiency to seeking optimal transformation paths for resource allocation and cost-effectiveness under complex constraints of uncertainty, policy coordination, and fairness. This Special Issue aims to address the uncertainties in energy development through comprehensive research on economic analysis, technological development, and policy considerations, and is committed to promoting a more comprehensive understanding of how energy and environmental development drive sustainable and equitable economic development.

Dr. Yuexia Pang
Dr. Haonan Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • energy economics
  • environmental efficiency
  • energy policy
  • electricity market
  • low-carbon policy evaluation
  • new energy investment
  • demand response management

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2096 KB  
Article
Empirical Analysis of Renewable Energy Subsidy Policies on Regional Employment and Growth
by Yuhao Gu, Xin Song, Wenyuan Han and Ming Xie
Sustainability 2026, 18(15), 7683; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18157683 - 29 Jul 2026
Viewed by 648
Abstract
Against the global backdrop of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, renewable energy subsidy policies worldwide are shifting from universal, tariff-based schemes toward targeted, market-oriented mechanisms. However, existing research remains divided on the incentive effects of subsidies on firm investment and the risk [...] Read more.
Against the global backdrop of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, renewable energy subsidy policies worldwide are shifting from universal, tariff-based schemes toward targeted, market-oriented mechanisms. However, existing research remains divided on the incentive effects of subsidies on firm investment and the risk of resource misallocation, and few studies have established a clear micro-macro linkage between firm-level subsidy receipts and regional employment and growth outcomes. Taking China’s 2016 renewable energy subsidy reform—characterized by competitive project bidding and green certificate trading—as a quasi-natural experiment, this study constructs a two-layer panel dataset covering 286 A-share listed renewable energy firms (2010–2023, 2412 firm-year observations) and 30 provincial-level regions in China (2010–2023, 420 region-year observations). Employing difference-in-differences (DID), triple difference-in-differences (DDD), mediation effect models, and threshold regression, combined with instrumental variables and placebo tests to address endogeneity, we empirically examine how subsidy policies transmit from firm behavior to regional employment and economic growth. The results indicate that the 2016 reform significantly boosted regional employment (elasticity = 0.035, p < 0.01) and economic growth (elasticity = 0.031, p < 0.05) in treated provinces. At the firm level, subsidy intensity exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with investment efficiency, with an estimated inflection point at 8.3% of operating revenue within the sample. Mechanism analysis shows that easing financing constraints, stimulating technological innovation, and reducing operational risk serve as core transmission channels, with the strongest contribution from financing constraint alleviation. Heterogeneity analysis further finds larger effects for private firms, high-tech enterprises, and coastal regions. This study develops a nonlinear analytical framework of “subsidy intensity–firm behavior–regional outcomes”, identifies context-specific boundaries of subsidy effectiveness, and provides integrated micro-macro empirical evidence for optimizing subsidy policies and advancing the global energy transition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Research on Energy Economics and Environmental Efficiency)
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26 pages, 6800 KB  
Article
Synergistic Governance of Pollution and Carbon Emissions Reduction in the Yellow River Basin Urban Agglomerations: Spatiotemporal Evolution and Regional Disparities
by Jiao Guo, Rongrong Yang, Qi Zhang and Zhen Wang
Sustainability 2026, 18(13), 6686; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18136686 - 1 Jul 2026
Viewed by 485
Abstract
Enhancing the synergistic governance of pollution control and carbon emission reduction is essential for achieving high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin urban agglomerations. Based on the connotation of synergistic governance of pollution control and carbon emission reduction, we adopt the two-stage network [...] Read more.
Enhancing the synergistic governance of pollution control and carbon emission reduction is essential for achieving high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin urban agglomerations. Based on the connotation of synergistic governance of pollution control and carbon emission reduction, we adopt the two-stage network SBM model to calculate the pollution and carbon emission reduction efficiency (PCRE) and synergistic governance efficiency (SGE) of 73 cities in the Yellow River Basin urban agglomerations during 2011–2023. Subsequently, the paper explores the spatiotemporal characteristics, regional disparities, and spatial evolution patterns of the two efficiencies. The results indicate that: (1) Both the PCRE and SGE present considerable fluctuations during the study period. (2) In terms of spatial characteristics, the PCRE and SGE show a spatial pattern of overall dispersion and local concentration. (3) There exist significant differences between PCRE and SGE. The PCRE shows a fluctuating trend and the interregional difference is the primary source of this disparity, while the SGE presents a steady evolutionary tendency, and the transvariation density is the significant factor contributing to the disparity. (4) The spatial analysis reveals significant positive spatial autocorrelation in PCRE. Both PCRE and SGE exhibit state persistence and path dependence in their spatial evolution, with a potential Matthew effect in some transition paths. Spatial Markov results further show that high-efficiency neighborhoods promote upward transitions in neighboring cities, whereas low-efficiency neighborhoods reinforce low-efficiency state persistence. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Research on Energy Economics and Environmental Efficiency)
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