Spatial Spillover Effect of New Energy Development on Economic Growth in Developing Areas of China—An Empirical Test Based on the Spatial Dubin Model

The development of new energy in developing areas should not only consider the effect on local economic growth, but also give some attention to its spillover effect for economic growth in neighboring areas and take a new path of cluster-style development and cooperative governance. On the basis of Moran’s I and the Spatial Dubin Model (SDM), this paper analyzes the spatial spillover effect of new energy development on economic growth of 21 developing areas in China from 2000 to 2017. The results show that: (1) According to the Moran’s I, there are significant economic agglomeration characteristics in the spatial distributions among different areas in the study area. (2) A comparative study using the mixed Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method and SDM shows that new energy has a negative spillover effect on the economic growth of neighboring areas when considering spatial factors, but this negative effect is underestimated in the mixed OLS method. (3) In addition to the core explanatory variable, the spatial spillover effect of new energy on economic growth is also affected by control variables, but the degree of impact varies. The results imply that some effective policy measures, such as sustainable development mechanisms, industrial distribution, and comparative innovation, should be taken to encourage new energy development for the high quality growth in developing areas on the national, regional, and global scale.