新型城镇化建设提高城市能源利用效率的机制.

China has entered the stage of high-quality development, and the construction of new-type urbanization is an important approach for the realization of the country's high-quality economic development as well as reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality. The existing literature has produced a number of fruitful research results on the economic and environmental effects of the transformation of urbanization. However, few studies have tested the effects of the new-type urbanization construction on energy efficiency and their mechanisms from the perspective of exogenous impact. Therefore, in the context of China's actual situation, this paper constructed a theoretical framework of 'technological progress－population agglomeration－urban expansion,' and then deeply explained how the comprehensive pilot policy for new-type urbanization affected energy efficiency. Based on the panel data of 285 cities in China, this paper made an innovative breakthrough from the existing empirical analyses by dividing energy efficiency into total-factor energy efficiency and green total-factor energy efficiency, choosing the comprehensive pilot policy for new-type urbanization as a quasinatural experiment, and using the difference-in-differences method to examine the mechanisms and impact of new-type urbanization on energy efficiency. The results showed that: ① After a series of robustness tests, the impact of the comprehensive pilot policy for newtype urbanization on total-factor energy efficiency and green total-factor energy efficiency was significantly negative, and the effect increased year by year. ② Mechanism analysis showed that new-type urbanization mainly hindered the improvement of energy efficiency by promoting technological progress, boosting population agglomeration, and stimulating urban expansion. ③ According to the analysis of the effect of the regional biased policy, the regionally biased policy leaning toward the central and western regions did not promote the energy-saving effect of new-type urbanization. ④ According to the analysis of the effect of urban agglomeration mode, joining an urban agglomeration helped enhance the effect of the new-type urbanization on energy efficiency. This study provides empirical evidence and policy implications for promoting China's new-type urbanization, avoiding unfavorable factors, and achieving a 'win-win' situation of the high-quality development of new-type urbanization and the improvement of energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]