Promoting consumer adoption of high-efficiency energy-saving home appliances (ESHA) is critical for reducing residential energy consumption. China has implemented a portfolio of incentive policies, yet policy effects vary across regions, sales channels, and information environments. Based on panel data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2015 to 2022, this study adopts gradient boosting regression trees (GBRTs) and panel models to explore online and offline policy-sales associations. The online sample includes three major appliance categories: air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines, whereas, constrained by data availability, the offline analysis covers only air conditioners and washing machines. Results show that more policy instruments do not always strengthen online associations, with evident heterogeneity across instrument types and product groups. Offline policy performance also exhibits marked regional differentiation. This study reveals channel- and product-differentiated policy roles and provides empirical implications for targeted ESHA policy design, with its conclusions limited to China's institutional and market context and the scope of the available data.
Peng et al. (Mon,) studied this question.