Market segmentation is a significant obstacle to the construction of a unified large market in China at this stage, and it is also an important factor inhibiting urban carbon emission efficiency (CEE). Based on the panel data of Chinese cities from 2009 to 2019, this paper constructs a benchmark panel model and a threshold panel model after calculating CEE, to deeply explore the impact of market segmentation on CEE. The results show that market segmentation not only directly reduces CEE significantly but also affects it by inhibiting industrial structure upgrading, technological innovation, and energy efficiency. The threshold effect test indicates that when market segmentation is taken as the threshold variable, there exists a threshold value. When market segmentation is below this threshold, its effect on CEE is significantly positive; when market segmentation is above this threshold, its effect on CEE is significantly negative.
Wang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.