Abstract Information asymmetry between governments and industries is a major impediment
to set an optimal energy efficiency target for reduction in energy demand. Typically, the
regulators face challenges of incomplete and imperfect information on the minimum
improvement in energy intensity that industries would achieve in baseline cases and the
maximum technical potential of energy efficiency that industries are able to achieve. By
applying a two-tier stochastic frontier model based on provincial panel data 2006–2015 in …