Danlu Xu

This paper aims to identify the relationship among energy consumption, FDI, and economic development in China from 1993 to 2017, taking Zhejiang as an example. FDI is the main factor of the rapid development of Zhejiang’s open economy, which promotes the development of the economy, but also leads to the growth in energy consumption. Based on the time series data of energy consumption, FDI inflow, and GDP in Zhejiang from 1993 to 2017, we choose the vector auto-regression (VAR) model and try to identify the relationship among energy consumption, FDI, and economic development. The results indicate that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship among them. The FDI inflow promotes energy consumption, and the energy consumption promotes FDI inflow in turn. FDI promotes economic growth indirectly through energy consumption. Therefore, improving the quality of FDI and energy efficiency has become an inevitable choice to achieve the transition of Zhejiang’s economy from high speed growth to high quality growth.