What Mechanisms Do Financial Marketization and China’s Fiscal Decentralization Have on Regional Energy Intensity? Evidence Based on Spatial Spillover and Panel Threshold Effects Perspectives

Energy efficiency and energy intensity are gradually gaining attention, and it is now an important proposition to reconcile financial marketization, fiscal decentralization, and regional energy intensity. Using Chinese mainland provincial panel data (except Tibet) from 2007 to 2019, this study applied the dynamic panel system generalized method of moments model, the spatial Durbin model, and the panel threshold model to investigate the mechanisms of financial marketization and fiscal decentralization on regional energy intensity. The study found that financial marketization can play a significant role in suppressing regional energy intensity, while fiscal decentralization promotes energy intensity. Meanwhile, financial marketization in one province can have a negative spatial transmission effect on energy intensity in other provinces, while fiscal decentralization in one province has a negative spatial spillover effect on energy intensity in other provinces. Based on the analysis of the moderating and threshold effects, financial marketization not only moderates the negative externality of fiscal decentralization, making it inhibit energy intensity in the opposite direction, but also gradually increases the moderating effect on fiscal decentralization as the degree of financial marketization increases, showing a nonlinear inhibiting effect on regional energy intensity.