Empirical Analysis on the Effect of City Size Distribution on Regional Energy Efficiency

The characteristics of city size distribution can affect the regional energy efficiency. The empirical analysis based on the provincial panel data of China show that the regional energy efficiency is in an " inverted U" relationship with the concentration levels of city size distribution. The study demonstrates that the energy efficiency optimization levels of well coordinated cities are higher than those overly dispersed or over- concentrated cities. It follows that the higher the urbanization rate, the stronger the " inverted U" effects on the energy efficiency would be produced. Hence, the urbanization path of coordinated development of cities at different scales is the optimization choice to improve regional energy efficiency.