Leveraging the Role of Accelerated Transition to Renewable Energy: Insight from China’s Economic Prosperity

The article examined the asymmetric effect of renewable energy consumption transition on China’s economic prosperity using time series data from 1996 to 2022. Using maximum likelihood and threshold regression analysis, the findings revealed that the transition to renewable energy consumption can promote China’s economic prosperity. The findings were achieved through controlling the threshold effect of investment in R&D expenditure and labor force transformations in the nexus between the transition to renewable energy consumption and economic prosperity. Furthermore, the threshold effect investigations revealed a significant R&D threshold effect of 0.65% regarding the impact of transition to renewable energy consumption on economic prosperity and a significant LFP threshold effect of 4.34% regarding the impact of transition to renewable energy consumption on economic prosperity, respectively. Specifically, when the level of investment in R&D expenditure exceeds the estimated threshold value above, the facilitating effect of accelerated transition to renewable energy consumption on economic prosperity becomes stronger. Further investigation revealed that the transition to renewable energy consumption can significantly drive China’s “dual carbon” targets.