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The effect of carbon emission trading on enterprises’ sustainable development performance: A quasi-natural experiment based on carbon emission trading pilot in China
... However, few studies have clearly and effectively integrated the two concepts or systematically examined the effects of this policy mechanism on LUCE efficiency. Furthermore, while some research has explored the effect mechanisms of urban carbon reduction policies, these studies primarily focused on carbon trading pilot policies [50,51], low-carbon pilot policies [52,53], and smart city policy [54], with little research on the UDR policy. As the promotional effects of this policy gradually increase, there remains potential to enhance the evaluation of its external effects and optimization pathways. ...
... Therefore, incorporating LUCEs into the indicator system helps to more objectively and accurately reflect the comprehensive status of land use [6]. However, current research analyzing the policy effects of CE reduction policies in China using the DID method mostly measures only the pure CEs [50][51][52][53][54]. Based on panel data at various city levels in China, CEs are directly taken as the explanatory variable. ...
Today, the ecological and environmental risks of increasing energy consumption and carbon emissions (CEs) are becoming increasingly prominent. The “Urban Double Repairs” (UDR) policy aims to enhance urban ecosystems, optimize urban land use, and improve urban land-use carbon emission (LUCE) efficiency. Drawing on panel data of the statistical yearbooks from 2006 to 2021 representing 285 prefecture-level cities in China, this study uses the non-expected output slacks-based measure (NEO-SBM) model and the progressive difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the effects and intrinsic mechanisms of the UDR policy on urban LUCE efficiency, aiming to provide references for the greening transformation of land-use patterns (LUPs). The research results indicate that the UDR policy significantly promotes urban LUCE efficiency, which was confirmed through a series of robustness tests. The findings of the mechanism analysis indicate that the UDR policy can enhance urban LUCE efficiency by promoting the green upgrading of traditional industries. The positive effects of this policy on LUCE efficiency exhibit a short-term lag period of 2 years. The findings of the heterogeneity analysis reveal that the effects of the UDR policy on urban LUCE efficiency are heterogeneous and depend on the urban location, resource endowment, and scale. Specifically, the effects are more significant in eastern cities, large-scale cities, and non-resource-based (NRB) cities. According to the research findings, each city should implement the UDR policy according to local conditions, develop differentiated low-carbon transformation methods, and actively guide the upgrading of green industrial structures. These measures will significantly facilitate the green and efficient use of urban land resources in China.
... Supply chain digital innovation further incentivizes these companies to integrate sustainability strategies. To assess the heterogeneous impact of SCIA on sustainable development performance (SDP), companies are categorized as large-or smallscale based on the median total assets (Zhang and Xin, 2024). ...
As societal concerns around environmental protection, and corporate governance are increasing, entities like consumers, investors, and others are raising their expectations of companies’ corporate social responsibility. Companies that pursue sustainable development goals will receive more attention and support from these stakeholders. The pilot policy for supply chain innovation and application (SCIA) is a systemic experiment launched by the Chinese government that aims to facilitate the digitalization of supply chains and encourage companies to adopt innovative technological methods to optimize traditional supply chain management practices. Based on data from 508 manufacturing companies from 2013 to 2022, this research utilizes SCIA in the framework of a quasi-natural experiment, employing research methods DID, EM, PSM-DID, and SDID to evaluate the effect of the SCIA on SDP. Through empirical evidence, it concludes that the rollout or enforcement of the SCIA pilot policy significantly promotes SDP. SCIA impacts corporate sustainable development by increasing their intention to invest in innovation, ensuring the sustainability of corporate innovation, and reducing company cost expenditures. There is significant heterogeneity in the effectiveness of establishing pilot cities for the digitization and application of supply chain innovations: the pilot policy can significantly promote the SDP of state-owned enterprises; compared to small-scale companies, the SDP of large companies has been significantly improved due to the pilot policy; SCIA pilot policies have a greater impact on SDP of low agency cost companies than high agency cost companies; and companies located in cities with a high degree of digitalization are more favorable impacts from the pilot policy. Companies with weak monopoly power have a more significant improvement in SDP. The study enriches the research on the effectiveness of SCIA pilot policies and provides insights into how local governments can facilitate the enhancement of the SDP of manufacturing companies.
... Carbon emission trading has inhibited corporate carbon emissions, and the synergy between carbon emission trading and green financial tools further effectively reduces the carbon emissions of enterprises [21]. Moreover, participation in the carbon emission trading market is conducive to improving the sustainable development performance of enterprises [22,23]. ...
... Research shows that carbon markets internalize the external costs of carbon emissions through pricing mechanisms, incentivizing companies to reassess energy usage, optimize resource allocation, and reduce carbon emissions (Zhang & Xi, 2024). This core function establishes a strong economic foundation for shifting corporate behaviour. ...
Establishing a unified energy market is an important way to achieve the security of the energy supply, improve energy efficiency, and reach carbon neutrality. This paper examines the impact of environmental regulation, represented by the carbon market, on the integration of the energy market. Using panel data from 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 2003-2021, we identify the impact of the carbon emission trading pilot policy on the level of energy market integration (EMI) through the staggered DID model. On this basis, the mechanism was further analysed, with heterogeneous effects from multiple perspectives. The results show that (1) the carbon emission trading pilot policy improved the regional EMI; (2) the carbon emission trading pilot policy intensified the level of competition in the energy market, reduced the government's intervention, and promoted the development of innovation in clean energy technology, thus positively contributing to the EMI; and (3) the contribution of the carbon emission trading pilot policy to the EMI was heterogeneous. The carbon emission trading pilot policy has stronger marginal effects in regions with lower levels of development, and the policy effects are more pronounced in regions with more abundant clean energy resources. The enforcement of stricter environmental standards and improved information disclosure can help carbon markets exert a positive effect on EMI. Better levels of environmental infrastructure and the development of renewable energy infrastructure are necessary elements to ensure that the carbon market promotes EMI. This study provides key insights and policy implications to better promoting EMI and implement dual-carbon goals. Key policy insights. Market-based environmental regulations, such as China's carbon market, can be considered by governments as key tools in promoting energy market integration (EMI).. Enhanced competition in the energy market, reduced government intervention, and increased development of clean energy are the primary reasons why carbon markets support EMI.. Regional environmental standards should be strengthened, corporate transparency should be enhanced, and information disclosure improved to ensure the fairness and efficiency of the carbon trading market.. Less developed countries can gradually implement carbon market policies, focusing on clean energy infrastructure and regional adaptation.. Regional economic differences are considered when designing carbon market policies to ensure that they adapt to local market needs and development stages. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Clearly, further development and improvement of energy control technologies to meet the requirement of reducing ship fuel consumption remains a key direction for the industry. Hybrid power technology is driving the shipping industry toward greener development [2][3][4]. The integration of operating condition identification technology and energy management strategies (EMS) for hybrid ships has provided new opportunities for reducing fuel consumption [5]. ...
Hybrid power technology for ships is an effective way to promote the green and low-carbon development of the maritime industry. The development of pattern recognition technology provides new research ideas for the rational allocation and utilization of energy in hybrid power ships. To reduce fuel consumption, a nonlinear model predictive control energy management strategy based on working condition identification is proposed for optimal energy management to solve the problem of real-time optimal adjustment of generators and batteries. The core of the strategy is to identify the ship’s working conditions and the nonlinear model predictive control algorithm. Firstly, to achieve the working condition identification task, a ship working condition dataset based on a hybrid supply power ship data is constructed. The labeled dataset is trained using deep learning techniques. Secondly, based on the identification results, a nonlinear model predictive control algorithm is designed to adjust the generator speed and the battery current to achieve energy optimization control under constraints. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed strategy in optimizing energy control and reducing fuel consumption is verified through simulation. The proposed strategy can reduce the generator fuel consumption by 5.5% under no noise disturbance when compared with conventional predictive control. Under 10% noise disturbance, it is still able to reduce the fuel consumption by 2.6%.
... Such research helps to reveal the intrinsic connections between carbon emission rights markets and financial markets, providing significant support for the healthy development of carbon emission rights markets and the stability of financial markets. Studies on the correlation of carbon emission rights markets cover various aspects, including the correlation between carbon emission trading mechanisms and markets [25,26], the correlation between carbon emission rights markets and financial markets [27,28], the impact of carbon emission trading on enterprises [29,30], and the risk assessment of carbon emission rights markets [31,32]. ...
As China’s financial markets become increasingly integrated and the carbon market undergoes financialization, the impact of carbon emission price fluctuations on financial markets has emerged as a key area of systemic risk research. This study employs the Generalized AutoRegressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model and the optimal Copula function to investigate the dynamic correlation between carbon prices and China’s financial markets. Building on this, the Monte Carlo simulation and Copula CoVaR models are used to explore the spillover effects of carbon price volatility on China’s financial markets. The findings reveal the following: (1) Carbon price fluctuations generate spillover effects on all financial markets, but the intensity varies across different markets. The foreign exchange market experiences the strongest spillover effect, followed by the bond market, while the stock and money markets are relatively less affected. (2) The optimal Copula functions differ between the carbon market and China’s financial markets, indicating heterogeneous characteristics across regional markets. (3) There is a degree of interdependence between the carbon market and various sub-markets in China’s financial system. The carbon market has the strongest positive correlation with the commodity market and a relatively high negative correlation with the real estate market. These findings underscore the importance of integrating carbon price volatility into financial risk management frameworks. For policymakers, it highlights the need to consider market stability measures when crafting carbon emission regulations. Market managers can leverage these insights to develop strategies that mitigate risk spillover effects, while investors can use this analysis to inform their portfolio diversification and risk assessment processes.
... Early research focused on the singular impact of CEPT on CO2 or atmospheric pollutant reduction, reaching some consensus: CEPT can significantly reduce carbon emissions [11] and carbon intensity [12] in pilot areas. However, due to differences in economic development levels, industrial structure, and policy execution efficiency, there is heterogeneity in the carbon reduction effects of pilot programs [13], offering a new perspective for formulating and evaluating climate change and environmental governance policies. The concept of synergistic effects was proposed by Ayres et al. and later introduced into the IPCC assessment reports, indicating that emission reduction measures often generate widespread positive impacts. ...
China faces issues such as air pollution and global climate change, and the Carbon Emission Trading Policy (CETP) has attracted considerable attention as a core policy tool for achieving the “dual carbon” goals. Based on panel data from the Pearl River–West River Economic Belt (PRWREB) from 2008 to 2021, we use the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) and Spatial Difference-in-Differences (S-DID) models to explore the pollution reduction and carbon reduction effects of the CETP and its spatial heterogeneity. Our analysis reveals several interesting insights. First, the CETP has promoted a 34.1% overall reduction in pollution and carbon levels in the pilot areas, with sustained effects. Moreover, spatial spillover effects can reduce the pollution and carbon levels in the economic belt by 29.9%. Second, the pollution and carbon reduction effects of the CETP are more significant in regions with better economic development and active carbon trading. It has the best synergistic reduction effects on CO2 and SO2 but is less effective in reducing PM2.5. Third, the spillover effects of the CETP on technological innovation are greater than the direct effects, with the most noticeable pollution and carbon reduction outcomes. The overall negative effect on industrial structure is that it fails to promote pollution and carbon reduction. The emission reduction mechanisms vary for different targets: CO2 and PM2.5 are related to energy efficiency, SO2 to advancing industrial structure, and smoke and dust to technological innovation. Based on the research conclusions, we propose to improve the coordinated governance system for carbon and pollution, advance pollution and carbon reduction according to local conditions, and implement targeted emission reduction and efficiency enhancement.
... To satisfy this market demand and maintain a competitive edge, enterprises in their growth stage may opt to increase capital investment to drive green technological innovation. Enterprises in the mature stage are more likely to actively seek long-term development strategies to support the green upgrading of manufacturing processes since they have relatively substantial capital [88]. Relatively speaking, because of the unclear capital investment and inflexible internal procedures, enterprises in the decline stage, might not be as positive about green innovation [89]. ...
At different lifecycle stages, enterprises possess differentiated resource endowments and innovation needs, leading to variations in the effect of carbon emission trading policies on their green innovation. This study analyzes the impact of China’s carbon emission trading policy on green innovation, using A-share listed firms in Shanghai and Shenzhen between 2010 and 2022 as samples, from the perspective of the enterprise lifecycle. The results validate the Porter hypothesis, showing that the policy stimulates green innovation, especially in the growth and maturity stages of enterprises. However, the extent of this impact varies across enterprise scale heterogeneity, heterogeneity in the proportion of independent directors, heterogeneity in the level of green innovation and regional heterogeneity. The carbon emission trading policies can mitigate financing constraints and improve capital investment to foster green innovation, especially for mature enterprises. The findings not only enhance the theoretical investigation of flexible market-oriented environmental regulatory mechanisms but also provide valuable insights for advancing the growth of China’s low-carbon economy.
... The CET had a positive effect on improving the efficiency of green innovation by affecting the industrial structure, energy structure, human capital and FDI [59], and significantly promoted technical change towards clean energy [60]. Some research has focused on the effect on technological innovation [59,61,62] and green development performance of enterprises [63,64]. Liu et al. (2023) [62] found that CET had significantly encouraged green technological innovation in industrial enterprises and this positive effect is greater for firms with large capital scales, with better corporate governance. ...
Carbon emissions trading policy is an important tool to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. In order to explore the effectiveness of carbon emissions trading policy, this paper adopts the difference-in-differences model to analyze the effects of China’s pilot policy on regional economic development and pollution reductions. The results show that carbon trading policy can significantly promote economic development and reduce total carbon emissions, industrial SO2 emissions and solid wastes production of pilot regions. Further research finds that there is significant regional difference in policy effectiveness, with the policy more effective in western areas. In addition to direct effects, carbon trading policy could exert an indirect effect on carbon emissions, air quality, industrial solid wastes and regional economic development by optimizing energy consumption structures and industrial structures and increasing technological investment. This result verifies the “Porter hypothesis”. China should improve the construction of national carbon trading markets, covering more industries, considering the regional differences and negative spillover effect.
... Due to the carbon ETS being implemented in pilot provinces and cities, targeting some high-carbon industries, macro shocks may mainly come from both provincial and industry levels. In addition, adding fixed effects at the enterprise level may excessively eliminate the differences in the implementation effects of pilot area enterprises [34,35]. Therefore, this study incorporates fixed effects of time province industry into the main regression model. ...
Green technology innovation is an important driving force for low-carbon development of enterprises. As a market-based environmental policy to promote greenhouse gas emission reduction, whether carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) can encourage enterprises to carry out green technology innovation under the background of “dual carbon” goal deserves further research. Taking Chinese A-share listed enterprises in the five major sectors as samples, this study constructed a modified Difference-in-Differences (DID) model to test the causal effect of ETS on green innovation in high-carbon industries. Three significant results can be summarized from the empirical study. Firstly, the ETS has a significant promoting effect on green innovation of high-carbon enterprises. And it can effectively promote high-carbon enterprises to achieve an average of a 13.24–19.56% increase in low-carbon innovation capabilities. Secondly, enterprises with different characteristics have heterogeneity in the impact of ETS implementation on green innovation. Secondly, the implementation of ETS exerts heterogeneous effects on green technology innovation across enterprises that possess diverse characteristics. Enterprises with a large capital scale (low equity concentration) have a more significant promoting effect than those with a small capital scale (high equity concentration). Thirdly, the green innovation effect of ETS exhibits significant heterogeneity across different types of industries. In the mining, manufacturing, and construction sectors, the ETS has effectively stimulated green innovation to a certain extent. There has been no significant change in green innovation in the sector of electricity, heat, gas, and water production and supply. In particular, after the implementation of the ETS, green innovation has actually been weakened in the transportation sector. As such, for policy makers, differentiated ETS policies should be implemented based on the actual situation of different industries and types of carbon-emitting enterprises.
... The resultant increase in carbon emission costs, whether tackled through technological innovation or market operations, acts as a crucial economic stimulus for businesses to decrease their carbon emissions (Cheng and Meng 2023;Zhang et al. 2024a). In the carbon trading ecosystem, companies with surplus allowances can trade them to those in deficit, thus garnering economic gains and further promoting reductions in emissions and carbon intensity (Qi and Han 2023;Zhang and Xi 2024;Wang et al. 2023a;Shobande et al. 2024). Additionally, carbon trading policies emphasize the value of low-carbon assets in fostering sustainable and competitive business growth, potentially urging more firms to actively engage in emission reduction (Li and Wang 2021;). ...
As a pivotal element in market mechanisms, carbon trading is increasingly recognized as crucial for achieving China’s Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality Goals. This study introduces a comprehensive dynamic model, integrating carbon trading, emissions, economic growth, and green technology innovation, to offer a holistic understanding of the interplay between these domains. Utilizing principles from nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, the model is adept at simulating various scenarios and assessing the effectiveness of government policies in stabilizing these complex systems. In-depth analysis provided by this research sheds light on the nuanced impact of carbon trading policies on sustainable development. Key findings highlight (1) Carbon trading’s essential role as a catalyst in propelling sustainable and high-quality growth. (2) A strong positive relationship is observed between the sophistication of the carbon trading mechanism and its effectiveness in stimulating green technology innovation and fostering high-quality green development. Notably, carbon trading’s influence on green technology innovation markedly enhances the efficacy of carbon emission reduction strategies. (3) Government regulations are instrumental in augmenting carbon prices, thus incentivizing increased corporate participation in emission reduction and enhancing the overall impact of carbon emission reduction. Nevertheless, the study identifies a critical threshold in regulatory intensity, beyond which there is a risk of system destabilization (). These findings underscore the imperative for developing an integrated national carbon emission trading market, prioritizing sustainable growth strategies and diligently pursuing China’s environmental objectives.
This study uses the establishment of Pilot Free Trade Zones (PFTZ) as a quasi‐natural experiment, analyzing data from A‐share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2009 to 2022. A staggered difference‐in‐differences (DID) model is applied to examine the impact of PFTZ on firms' green governance performance (GGP). The results show that PFTZ significantly enhance GGP, with robust findings after parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and addressing endogeneity. Mechanism analysis reveals that PFTZ improve GGP through two key mechanisms: “conceptual governance” and “process governance.” The conceptual governance mechanism strengthens firm's environmental and social responsibility awareness, while the process governance mechanism enhances management efficiency and fosters green innovation and transformation, thereby improving green governance quality. Heterogeneity analysis indicates stronger effects in high‐pollution industries, firms with greater reputational capital, regions with advanced green finance infrastructure, and eastern regions. Furthermore, regional environmental regulatory intensity and public environmental awareness positively moderate this effect. The establishment of PFTZ also expands corporate access to sustainable financing, supporting balanced environmental and economic outcomes. This study provides valuable insights for policymakers to promote firms' green transformation within PFTZ.
The present study aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and firm risk on working capital management policies among manufacturing firms listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The study sample consists of 1200 observations and 200 companies listed on the TSE over a six-year period from 2016 to 2021; furthermore, the statistical method used to test the hypotheses is ordinary least squares (OLS). The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic has led managers to increase current assets to total assets ratio (CATAR), current ratio (CR), quick ratio (QR), net working capital (NWC), cash to current assets (CTCA) ratio, while it has caused a decrease in operational cycle (OC), days account receivables (DAR), and current liabilities to total assets ratio (CLTAR). Furthermore, we find that the higher the company’s risk, the more managers are motivated to embrace the working capital investment policy, net working capital, cash to current assets ratio, and cash conversion efficiency (CCE). In general, our findings indicate that during times of crisis, Iranian companies tend to adopt conservative working capital policies to ensure sufficient liquidity to respond appropriately to unforeseen events. In this study, the theory of liquidity preference aligns with the observed behavior of firms in response to the COVID-19 crisis and firm risk, where the emphasis on liquidity and short-term financial stability becomes paramount.
The UK's 2050 net-zero emission target is one of the most ambitious goals in the world. Organisations should play a vital role by communicating a sufficient level of carbon emission information with the stakeholders. Motivated by the necessity of measuring the level of carbon disclosure, this paper provides a unique carbon emission disclosure measurement based on a sample of UK firms from 2013 to 2019. We apply different methods to assess the validity and reliability of our developed measurement. The results suggest that our measurement captures the actual CO2 emission, including scope 1, scope 2, and also captures the environmental, social and governance (ESG) score. Additionally, we explore the association between capital expenditure, corporate governance and the level of carbon emission disclosure. Further, the results show a positive relationship between capital expenditure and carbon emission disclosure. Also, there is a significant positive relationship between internal governance and carbon emission disclosure. Moreover, the analysis suggests that internal governance strengthen the relationship between capital expenditure and carbon emission disclosure. We also use quantile regression, and the findings show that capital expenditure and internal governance have a positive impact on carbon emission disclosure under all quantiles. Our data suggest that capital expenditure declines within the UK by around 53% over the last six years. Following the reduction in capital expenditure, the results demonstrate 39% decline in the CO2 emission level. The results also indicate that for every $1 million capital expenditure, approximately 2.75 Metric tons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) emissions increase. Business investment is around 70% of the UK's total investment. Therefore, the reduction in capital expenditure is one of the primary reasons that might explain the decrease in the UK's overall CO2 emission level. The unique findings of this paper are relevant to the government, management and standard-setters.
This paper assesses whether shareholders drive the environmental and social (E&S) performance of firms worldwide. Across 41 countries, institutional ownership is positively associated with E&S performance with additional tests suggesting this relation is causal. Institutions are motivated by both financial and social returns. Investors increase firms’ E&S performance following shocks that reveal financial benefits to E&S improvements. In cross section, investors increase firms’ E&S performance when they come from countries with a strong community belief in the importance of E&S issues, but not otherwise. As such, these institutional investors transplant their social norms regarding E&S issues around the world.
Global warming and climate change have been the most challenging environmental problem the world is facing. This problem will affect the future of this planet which can be seen from different stances. The public concern over the problems caused by climate change has led to the emergence of new environmental regulations. Environmental accounting is one of the elements that contribute to the corporate governance. Motivated by the opportunity environmental accounting could achieve the sustainable growth and development, the present study aims to investigate the existences of the environmental disclosure and financial performance among top 100 company of market capitalization in Malaysia for the year 2011. The needed information was examined by content analyzing the companies’ annual report. The analysis shows mixed results between the existence of the environmental disclosure practices in Malaysia and financial performance. This issue is still ongoing debating at international and national level since the environmental accounting is on developing and expanding as the social focus towards environment is increasing. There are no such regulations and statutory requirements for the companies in Malaysia to disclose on the environmental sustainability. However, the need for environmental disclosure is still there if the companies want to legitimize their position among the society to enhance the expectation in measuring the environmental. It is the role of regulators to facilitate provision of such information that need to be disclose by the companies without comprising the need of various parties.
Carbon trading is a crucial policy to combat climate change and China's carbon market is considered one of the carbon markets to consider. Some studies have shown that China's carbon trading scheme promotes carbon reduction. However, others have shown that low carbon prices and poor liquidity characterize China's carbon market. How can China's carbon trading mechanism achieve the expected emission reduction when the market mechanism has not been fully established? To answer it, this article collected 30 Chinese provinces' panel data from 2005 to 2019 and explored the relationship between the implementation of carbon trading policies and carbon emission reduction through a multi-period difference-in-differences model. In addition, a series of robustness tests were performed. The results indicate that carbon trading does effectively curb carbon emissions. But this policy effect is not achieved through the market mechanism. In the pilot phase of China's carbon market, government intervention played a significant role in reducing carbon emissions. The results also suggest that the carbon trading mechanism promotes carbon emission reduction through energy consumption rather than industrial structure. This study enriches the empirical evidence of carbon trading and provides valuable references for policymakers and the construction of carbon markets.
The improvement of carbon emission efficiency is crucial to the realization of the global carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Based on the panel data of 282 cities from 2004 to 2018 in China, this paper employs the stochastic frontier analysis approach combined with the Sheppard distance function to calculate the total factor carbon emission efficiency of each city. Regarding the low-carbon pilot city policy as a quasi-natural experiment, we evaluate the impact of the pilot policy on carbon emission efficiency and its spatial spillover effect using the spatial difference-in-differences model. The results show that the pilot policy can significantly improve the carbon emission efficiency and has long-term dynamic effects. Also, the effect of the policy has spatial spillover, and has a positive impact on the neighboring cities. Mechanism analysis implies that optimal allocation of resources, energy conservation and green technology innovation make the low-carbon policy play an important intermediary role in promoting carbon emission efficiency. Besides, the effects of the pilot policy have obvious heterogeneity, especially cities in large, higher population densities and the north. These findings reveal that low-carbon pilot city policies are indispensable for both implementing the dual-carbon strategy and winning the defense for the blue sky.
As a major carbon dioxide-emitting country, China set carbon trading market to reduce enterprise carbon emissions through the rational allocation of carbon quotas among different enterprises and regions. The market has also conducted a preliminary exploration for the country to achieve carbon dioxide emissions peak in 2030 and carbon neutrality in 2060 while actively addressing the challenges of global climate change. This study analysed the emission reduction effect of China's carbon trading pilot policy, especially the role of carbon quota and carbon trading price. The analysis used county-level panel data from 1997 to 2017, regarded the implementation of the carbon trading pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment, and used the difference-in-differences method. The results showed that, first, the policy implementation not only reduced regional carbon emissions but also inhibited carbon dioxide emissions per capita, with long-term effects. Second, the carbon emission reduction effect brought by the carbon pilot policy showed significant heterogeneous results with the different degrees of regional carbon emissions and environmental supervision. The effect was greater in areas with higher carbon emission density and stronger legal supervision. Third, the difference in carbon quota allocations resulted in different emission reduction effects, among which the historical method had the strongest effect. The carbon quota price and number of enterprises participating carbon trading market were the key factors affecting carbon emission reduction.
Based on the tightening regulation of carbon emissions, China has launched the pilot carbon emission trading scheme (CETS) since 2013. There is growing empirical evidence of the actual effect of CETS to promote enterprises' productivity which is characterized by total factor productivity (TFP). However, most studies ignored the further analysis of influence mechanisms. This paper aims to explore the impact of CETS on the TFP of enterprises and discuss the mediating role of government participation and carbon trading market efficiency. Using data from A-share listed enterprises from CETS-covered enterprises, this paper employed a combination of the propensity score matching (PSM) and difference-in-differences (DID) strategies and found that the CETS has a statistically significant positive impact on the TFP of enterprises, and the positive effect has been maintained for six years since its inception. The moderation analysis indicated that: (1) two dimensions of government participation in terms of the market incentive and government supervision significantly moderate the positive impact of CETS on TFP of enterprises; (2) two dimensions of carbon trading market efficiency in terms of the market scale and liquidity significantly moderates the positive impact of CETS on TFP of enterprises. In light of Chinese pilots CETS policy, the study highlights the important moderating roles of government participation and high carbon trading market efficiency on enterprise's TFP.
We focus on a typical market anomaly-inactive trading: trading volume shrinks while stock price abnormally jumps. We calibrate a theoretical model with variance ambiguity heterogeneous among investors and illustrate that ambiguity averse investors' proportions enhance trading volume shrinkage and abnormal price jumps. We provide a cross-section analysis of stocks' inactive trading by introducing institutional investors' proportions to measure investor structures' differences among stocks. We also empirically measure relative inactive trading for constituent stocks in S&P 500 from 2014 to 2019 and demonstrate that institutional investors' proportion is negatively related to inactive trading. Finally, we demonstrate that higher proportions of institutional investors lead to less inactive trading anomalies.
Technological innovation can improve the resource efficiency and accelerate the transformation of energy production mode, which offers attractive opportunities for low-carbon development of traditional energy firms. However, whether technological innovation can generate a better environmental result for traditional energy firms remains to be explored. This paper develops a panel regression model to examine the effect of technological innovation on environmental performance of energy firms based on the data of 136 energy firms in China from 2009 to 2019. The results indicate that, first, technological innovation has significantly improved energy firms’ environmental performance, increasing environmental strengths by 0.056% and decreasing carbon emissions intensity by 0.015%. Second, these effects are weaker for energy firms with more government subsidies, providing new evidence for the removal of fossil energy subsidies. Finally, negative media coverage also significantly weakened the boosting effects of technological innovation on environmental performance, revealing a “dark side” of media coverage on environmental management of energy firms. These findings have practical implications for managers and government agencies to improve environmental performance of energy firms.
While there is an abundant stream of literature focusing on China's market-oriented environmental regulations, there is still a lack of research on the impact of China's carbon emission trading pilot (CETP) scheme on the high-quality development of manufacturing. In order to address this research gap, this paper employs the entropy TOPSIS method to quantitatively measure the development level of manufacturing activities in 30 provinces of China from 2011 to 2016. Then, the propensity score matching and difference in difference (PSM-DID) approach is used to empirically test the policy effect of CETP. Results show that the high-quality development level of China's manufacturing is relatively low. While CETP has significantly improved the high-quality development level of the manufacturing industry, the policy effect lags behind. Moreover, technological innovation plays an important role in the process of CETP, affecting high-quality development of manufacturing. In response to the above conclusions, this paper puts forward some policy implications.
The implementation of market-based climate policies represented by the emission trading system (ETS) is an important path for countries to participate in global climate governance and achieve the goals of carbon emission peaking and carbon neutrality. Whether the covered firms can improve financial performance through bearing responsibility for cutting emissions, a “win-win” of environmental and economic achievement, is an important way to evaluate the effectiveness of ETS. Based on the Chinese A-share listed firms in industrial sector during the period of 2010–2017, this paper employs PSM-DID method to investigate the impact of China's pilot ETS on financial performance of the covered firms. The results show that the covered firm's financial performance is improved by the implementation of pilot ETS, which can increase firm's ROA by 0.01 unit. Specifically, the pilot ETS can significantly improve the financial performance of non-state-owned firms, without affecting state-owned firms. Similarly, the financial performance improvement is more significant for firms in non-energy industries. Furthermore, the pilot ETS can motivate the covered firms to gain financial profit through cutting carbon emission as a mediation path, and the mediation effect size of carbon emission intensity is 0.001. Besides, firm's innovation ability weakens this mediation path, and the well-developed institutions in pilot area, proxied by high degree of marketization, only weaken the first part of the path, namely, carbon emission reduction led by ETS.
This study evaluates the impacts of China's pilot carbon ETS on urban-rural income inequality. Based on panel data of 273 cities in China from 2010 to 2018, we apply the multiple periods difference-in-differences method in a quasi-natural experiment setting. The results show that carbon ETS can significantly reduce the level of urban-rural income inequality by 8.11% in China. More specifically, the carbon ETS is associated with a 10.23% decrease in income inequality for cities piloted in 2014, but this effect is insignificant for cities piloted in 2017. In addition, the effect of carbon ETS does not noticeably degenerate with the length of exposure to the treatment. Further analysis indicates that the ETS has stronger effects on reducing urban-rural income inequality for the cities with higher CO2 emissions and for those with higher per capita GDP. These findings imply that the implementation of carbon ETS is beneficial for reducing income equality in China and the impact of carbon ETS on income inequality is heterogeneous for different levels of CO2 emissions and different levels of per capita GDP.
There is much debate about the effect of institutional investors on firm innovation. This paper tests three competing hypotheses by including differences among institutions in their ability to influence firms. Results using an outcome-based measure of innovation indicate that institutions do not foster short-term orientation; instead they may influence firms to increase innovation.
Environmental regulations (ERs) manifest in three main types: command-and-control ER (CMCER), market-based ER (MBER) and informal public ER (IPER). This article analyzes the impact of each type of ER on corporate environmental responsibility (CER) performance, and investigates the moderating effects of firms’ institutional environment on the relationship between ERs and CER. Using data from Chinese listed companies between 2009 and 2016, we found that all three types of ERs are positively related to CER performance. Such effects are more pronounced in regions with high marketization, industries with fierce product market competition and in environmentally sensitive industries, but are weakened by regional economic growth pressures. The moderating effect of corporate ownership structure on the relationship between ERs and CER is diverse, in that the impact of CMCER on the CER of non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is basically the same, but the impact of MBER and IPER on the CER of non-SOEs are significantly greater than that of SOEs. Further subdivision found that the impact of ERs on the CER of central SOEs is higher than that of local SOEs, and that political connections weaken the impact of ERs on the CER performance of non-SOEs. Using the mandatory disclosure policy as an instrumental variable, a Heckman two-stage model is used to overcome the endogeneity problem caused by self-selection bias. Robustness tests controlling for missing variable bias and the ordered probit/logit model further support our conclusions. Our research shows that the Chinese government should be committed to creating a supportive institutional environment to ensure the effectiveness of their ERs in pursuit of improved CER performance and sustainable development.
This study develops a novel framework by hand-mapping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their targets with a firm's sustainability practices, reflected in its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores. Our mapping provides an actionable solution for firms to identify where the SDGs are connected with their ESG performance and accordingly tangibly measure their progress towards achieving the SDGs. We show that there are particular SDGs and targets which are more relevant to the business sector than others. We also investigate how firm-specific characteristics can help explain variation in corporate sustainability performance and find that profitable, larger and less leveraged companies are more likely to exhibit better corporate sustainability performance. These findings carry significant implications for academics, firms, and investors. The mapping can be used as a guide to understand the linkages between ESG issues, corporate sustainability performance and the SDGs, and to quantitatively evaluate firms' progress towards implementing the SDGs using available ESG performance indicators. Our study also contributes to research on corporate sustainability performance in the context of emerging markets.
The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have acquired great relevance in scientific research about environmental issues, policies linked to environmental management, and industrial and agricultural production, among others. Although these two concepts are frequently used as synonyms, they are immersed in debates regarding their meaning and their possibilities for application to real systems. This review analyzes the main theoretical definitions of both concepts, together with their potentials and limitations, emphasizing the differences between their meanings. A bibliographic search was carried out in the Web of Science database and other sources from official organizations of international relevance and authors referenced by them. The works providing substantive definitions of sustainability and sustainable development from a complexity theory perspective were selected for discussion throughout the article. The main results showed a strong criticism of the concept of sustainable development due to its imprecise definition, the emergence of the concept of sustainability in the debate of the 1990s and its consolidation in certain fields of knowledge, and the emergence of new alternatives to sustainable development such as degrowth and buen vivir. The results also show the potential of the concept of sustainability as a still-developing framework for scientific research and environmental management.
The pilot carbon emission trading scheme in Guangdong Province (GD ETS) of China has fulfilled seven compliance periods, and its potential impact on regulated firms has drawn increasing attention. This article empirically investigated the impact of the ETS on firm behaviors and competitiveness (i.e., cost competitiveness and green competitiveness) by surveying all power firms in the GD ETS. Low-carbon management, carbon asset transactions, and energy saving and emission reduction technology were identified as firm behaviors. The relationships among the ETS, firm behaviors, and firm competitiveness were tested by using bootstrap multiple mediation analyses. The results showed that the GD ETS has a positive impact on firm behaviors. The three examined firm behaviors actually reflect the depth of firm participation in the ETS. The more the firm participates, the greater the mediating effects that the firm behaviors exert on firm competitiveness are. Both carbon asset transactions and energy saving and emission reduction technology have a mediating effect on the relationship between the GD ETS and cost competitiveness, while only the latter mediates the relationship between the GD ETS and green competitiveness. Implications for policy makers and firm operators were discussed.
This paper examines the impact of China's carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) on carbon emissions reduction and economic performance with a focus on the role of alternative allowance allocation. Using the industry-by-province panel data during the 2008-2016 period, the empirical strategy employs a difference-in-difference-in-difference model. Some novel findings emerge. First, the ETS leads to a reduction in carbon emissions and emission intensity, in particular, for those adopting the benchmarking allowance allocation. Second, the reduction in carbon emissions arises from an increase in energy efficiency. Moreover, the adjustment of energy structure is more favorable to ETS regions adopting the benchmarking allocation rule compared with ETS regions using the grandfathering one. Third, the ETS has muted impacts on employment and returns on assets. A further comparison between the benchmarking and grandfathering rules reveals that the former is associated with a rise in employment, while the latter leads to an increase in returns on assets. In line with the findings, it is recommended that the government should further develop the benchmarking value of the sub-sectors, and gradually transform the allowance allocation methods into the benchmarking-dominated method for China ETS.
The Coase Theorem has a central place in the theory of environmental economics and regulation. Its applicability for solving real-world externality problems remains debated. We first place this seminal contribution in its historical context. We then survey the experimental literature that has tested the importance of the many, often tacit assumptions in the Coase Theorem. We discuss a selection of applications of the Coase Theorem to actual environmental problems, distinguishing between situations in which the polluter or the pollutee pays. Most substantive examples of Coase-like bargaining involve more than two parties. It is not clear whether the outcomes of these bargains were Pareto optimal rather than merely Pareto improving. While limited in scope, Coasian bargaining over externalities offers a pragmatic solution to problems that are difficult to solve in any other way.
In the context of the popular development of the low-carbon economy, the “high energy consumption, high pollution, and high emissions” of the manufacturing industry have resulted in unprecedented difficulties in the development of this industry. To achieve nationally determined contribution targets, China has formulated a series of low carbon development plans for heavy industry to reduce carbon emissions. Among these, low-carbon technological innovation has been used a new means for manufacturing enterprises to achieve sustainable development, which is highly valued by management practice. Taking Chinese manufacturing companies as an example, the present study investigates the mediating effect of green core competence on the relationship between low-carbon technological innovation and enterprise performance and evaluates the moderating impact of firm size on this relationship. In this study, 438 valid data points were empirically analyzed, and the results indicate that low-carbon technological innovation significantly and positively affects enterprise performance of manufacturing. Green core competence plays a mediating role in the positive effect of low-carbon technological innovation on enterprise performance. Firm size has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between low-carbon technological innovation and enterprise performance. Meanwhile, firm size also moderates the relationship between low-carbon technological innovation and green core competence. Namely, a larger firm size correlates with a more positive effect on the cultivation of green core capabilities from the low-carbon technological innovation of manufacturing companies and in stronger enterprise performance. Finally, this work provides constructive guidance for Chinese manufacturing companies on how to practice low-carbon production and achieve sustainable development.
This study investigates the extent that key energy prices (coal, gas, oil and electricity) and weather explain carbon prices, a key feature of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), and whether this relationship changed since full auctioning came into effect in 2013. Energy prices were found to impact the carbon price in phase III of the EU ETS. However, modelling based solely on energy prices explained only 12% of carbon price variation. Weather variables did not affect the carbon price except for unanticipated temperature changes. These results indicate that it is not the level of temperature that impacts the carbon price, rather it is unanticipated changes in temperature that matter. Given that climate change is associated with increased variance in temperature, this result is consistent with climate change resulting in greater carbon price volatility and higher hedging costs.
This study applies representative and quantifiable indicators to measure carbon performance and uses crawler technology to determine whether carbon information is disclosed in 2009-2017 manufacturing CSR reports to study the measure of the consistency of carbon performance and carbon information disclosure on enterprise value. The results show that the consistency of corporate carbon performance and carbon information disclosure has a more significant positive impact on corporate value and that this promotional effect is more obvious among non-state-owned enterprises and companies with high levels of corporate governance.
The implementation of China's carbon emission trading policy has targeted achieving emission reduction and environmental protection as well as promoting economic development and technological innovation. The analysis is made through applying the Difference-in-Differences model and using the Ordinary Least Squares method and the Least Square Dummy Variable method in the paper. Results show that the pilot carbon emission trading policy leads to the expansion of employment scales and the reduction of carbon emissions after controlling for the environmental regulation, population size, economic level, and other important variables. Thus, it implies that an employment double dividend exists. For the Porter effect, it is found in the pilot carbon emission trading policy only without adding any control variable. The effect is further verified based on a robustness checks and a placebo test. Furthermore, from the perspective of market-oriented environmental regulation policy, this study explains that the carbon emission trading system launched in 2017 needs to be improved to spread both the employment double dividend and the Porter effect to the whole nation. China also needs to form a complete set of strict ecological environment protection policies and administrative measures to achieve sustainable development of the economy.
Command-and-control environmental regulation is a traditional environmental policy that is still widely used in developing countries. This study examined a rarely discussed but significant issue for environmental sustainability and economic development—the impact of command-and-control environmental regulation on enterprise total factor productivity growth—based on a large enterprise-level sample. Employing China’s “Two Control Zone” policy as a quasi-natural experiment, we used a Chinese industrial enterprise panel dataset from 1998 to 2007 to estimate the effects of command-and-control environmental regulation in a difference-in-difference framework. It is found that command-and-control environmental regulation hassignificantly hindered the growth of enterprise total factor productivity, and this negative effect was lagging and continuous. In addition, we leaned that this negative effect mainly came from the increase in costs of enterprises and the negative impact on the enterprise resource allocation efficiency. When considering enterprise heterogeneity in terms of pollution intensity, size, and ownership, the study further found that the negative effects are exacerbated for enterprises in more heavily polluting industries, those of smaller size, and those owned by foreign companies, respectively. Our research is a reexamination of the Porter hypothesis in China, and fills the gap in the literature on the micro effects of command-and-control policy on enterprise total factor productivity for developing countries. Based on a rigorous empirical analysis, we conclude that it is difficult to achieve a win–win scenario with sustainable environmental development and enterprise total factor productivity growth under command-and-control environmental regulation. Environmental regulations should have clear objectives and take a flexible approach, and it is necessary to adopt diversified environmental regulation policies based on market instruments.
Based on 2,775 firm-year observations of Chinese manufacturing firms (CMFs) as their significant impact on mitigating climate change and distinctive governance structures, this paper examines whether CMFs’ internationalization degree (INTD) improves the effect of their governance structure (GS) on sustainable operations (SO). Specifically, we define GS from aspects of ownership concentration, size of independent director, and state-holding intensity. Through OLS regression, Fixed Effect Test, and Random Effect Test, the change of SO can be robustly explained in a systematic manner. Empirical results present that CMFs’ INTD is lower in general. Stronger state-holding can significantly improve SO, and INTD can motivate ownership concentration to act on SO. Further, INTD that exceeds the average of all sample significantly improves ownership concentration’s effect on SO, but lower INTD is unable to promote any GS indicator to produce a positive effect. Additionally, the size of independent director has not been able to improve SO. Our findings indicate that key shareholders’ decision-making authority more directly guides firms’ sustainability, and thus CMFs with centralized governance mode are more likely to develop SO. What’s more, global-market expansion provides a feasible path that helps link corporate governance and SO.
Taking the Shenzhen pilot as an example, this paper uses a difference-in-differences (DID) method to quantitatively analyze the impact of carbon emissions’ environmental regulation on the stock returns of companies. The results show that establishing China’s carbon emissions trading market has a positive effect on the excess returns of companies participating in carbon emission allowances trading. Besides, the carbon premium in stock returns has increased after Chinas carbon emissions trading market is established. And we also observe that the carbon premium has a steady upward trend after 2014. In addition, our study proves that the coefficient of carbon risk factor is significantly positive, which can be explained by the fact that companies participating in the carbon market have higher carbon exposures.
We build a model of endogenous, innovation-driven growth in which innovative firms have costly access to outside financing and hoard cash reserves to maintain financial flexibility. We show that financing frictions slow down Schumpeterian creative destruction by discouraging entry. As a result, financing frictions importantly affect the composition of growth, by reducing the contribution of entrants but spurring the contribution of incumbents. We investigate the net impact of these countervailing effects on the equilibrium growth rate and welfare.
This paper proposes a probabilistic model for assessing corporate sustainability performance. The need for probabilistic approaches to sustainability measurement is on the rise. Existing approaches to measuring strong sustainability, which emphasize the non-substitutability of resources, overwhelmingly focus on the national- or regional-levels. Few “strong” sustainability models explicitly address performance at the company level. The model proposed in this paper is also unique in that it addresses situations where the variables used to measure performance are dependent on one another. Existing approaches focus on independent variables. The model is provided in a generalized form and offers a straightforward approach to assessing the sustainability performance of corporations. Also discussed in the paper are some managerial and academic implications of the model.
Current global economic activities are increasingly being perceived as unsustainable. Despite the high number of publications, sustainability science remains highly dispersed over diverse approaches and topics. This article aims to provide a structured overview of sustainability performance evaluation related publications and to document the current state of literature, categorize publications, analyze and link trends, as well as highlight gaps and provide research recommendations. 128 articles between 2007 and 2018 are identified. The results suggest that sustainability performance evaluation models shall be more balanced, suitable criteria and their interrelations shall be well defined and subjectivity of qualitative criteria inherent to sustainability indicators shall be considered. To address this subjectivity, group decision-making techniques and other analytical methods that can deal with uncertainty, conflicting indicators, and linguistic evaluations can be used in future works. By presenting research gaps, this review stimulates researchers to establish practically applicable sustainability performance evaluation frameworks to help assess and compare the degree of sustainability, leading to more sustainable business practices. The review is unique in defining corporate sustainability performance evaluation for the first time, exploring the gap between sustainability accounting and sustainability assessment, and coming up with a structured overview of innovative research recommendations about integrating analytical assessment methods into conceptual sustainability frameworks.
We develop a two-good general equilibrium model of a small open economy to decompose the effect of a country's unilateral strengthening of environmental policy on pollution emissions in the rest of the world, known as emissions leakage. We show analytically and numerically that the level of emissions leakage depends on the level of trade friction in the service sector. In the model, production in the manufacturing sector is associated with pollution emissions, and production in the service sector is clean. In a special case with free trade in manufacturing and no trade in services, no leakage occurs. Allowing for trade in services, we solve for the relationship between trade frictions in the service sector and leakage. At lower levels of service sector's trade friction, leakage from a small strengthening of environmental regulation decreases (increases) if services are imported (exported). Finally, we simulate the model, calibrating the to the Canadian economy to compare these effects’ relative sizes over a range of plausible parameter values. Leakage is about 18% lower when using trade friction levels estimated from the literature rather than assuming no trade friction in services.
Environmental innovation has been recognized as an efficient way of addressing environmental problems. However, how environmental innovation may affect carbon emissions in China and whether the effect may differ among various environmental innovation variables remain to be investigated. Therefore, based on the panel data of China’s 30 provinces during 2000–2013, we use a system generalized method of moments (SGMM) technique to estimate the effect of environmental innovation on carbon emissions in China. Also, we evaluate the effect on carbon emission reduction of China’s initial carbon emissions trading (CET) scheme. Empirical results indicate that, most environmental innovation measures in China reduce carbon emissions effectively. Among the various environmental innovation factors, energy efficiency exerts the most evident effect on carbon emissions abatement in China; meanwhile, resources for innovation and knowledge innovation also play prominent roles in this regard. However, the impact of governmental environmental policies on curbing carbon emissions reduction suffers from a lag effect, which mainly occurred during 2006–2013. Finally, despite the short time of operation and incomplete market mechanism, the pilot CET in China has appeared relatively promising with regard to carbon emissions reduction.
With important implications to the international carbon market and the global carbon emission mitigation efforts, the cap-and-trade emission trading scheme (ETS) in China is embedded in distinctive political, economic, and institutional contexts and has been attracting increasing attention in recent years. To provide a clear perspective on current research progress, this paper systematically reviews the literature on China’s ETS published between 2010 and 2015, which are summarized into three mainstreams of mechanism design, policy and region linkages, and impact assessment. Five detailed policy suggestions are offered to guide the establishment of a national ETS in China by generalizing the consensuses of existing research. After reviewing the most controversial issues in the existing literature, this paper identifies five key topics which are in pressing need to support China’s future ETS development, including cap setting, carbon allowance allocation, carbon pricing, policy coordination and inter-regional linkage, and ex-ante and ex-post assessments.
Being 'green' is socially, desirable, yet whether it pays to be 'green' is unclear. This question has become more important to manufacturing industries as environmental concerns are escalating, particularly in emerging economies. We examine the effects of green process innovation on the financial performance of manufacturing industries with a focus on the moderating effects of government subsidies versus industries' own absorptive capability. Using sulfur dioxide emissions as an environmental index, we establish a dynamic model using ten years panel data from 28 industries in China where environmental concerns have been severe and government subsidies have been commonly believed to be instrumental. The results show that clean technologies and end-of-pipe technologies are positively related to financial performance at the industry level, thus it pays to be 'green.' Furthermore, strong absorptive capacity tends to enhance this relationship, but surprisingly green subsidies turn out to weaken this relationship. We also find the effects are different between clean technologies and end-of-pile technologies, which leads to finer grained insights into these two types of technologies and their adoption. We conclude that manufacturing industries can benefit more from green process innovation by leveraging their internal absorptive capability, as opposed to replying on external government subsidies as commonly believed. Our findings provide finer grained insights on the benefits of green process innovation, and shed light on the study of green process innovation in other emerging economies.
This study analyzes factors that influence carbon emissions due to fossil energy consumption in China to identify key factors for policies promoting carbon emission reductions. Carbon emissions for energy consumption are decomposed into energy structure, energy intensity, industry structure, economic output, and population scale effects. The major driver of carbon emissions is the economic output effect, followed by population scale and energy structure effects. The energy intensity effect is a main inhibitory factor. The factors influencing carbon emissions in China were investigated for different industries, sectors and regions. The results show that carbon emissions mostly arise from industry, while the other sectors generally exhibit good performance in reducing emissions. In industry, the main contributors to carbon emissions are electricity production, petroleum processing and coking, metal smelting and rolling, chemical manufacture, and non-metal mineral products. Regional analysis revealed differences in economic output, energy intensity, and industrial structure among three regions of China. Policy implications in terms of industrial structure and energy consumption are highlighted.
Editor's Note: John Elkington's new book, Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st-Century Business, has been hailed as “practical, compassionate and deeply informed, a brilliant synthesis of his genius for cutting through the thicket of tough issues–in the world of business and sustainability–and producing elegant solutions that can be applied today” (Paul Hawken). We are pleased to have the opportunity to publish a selection from this award-winning book. In this discussion of partnerships, Elkington explores how effective, long-term partnerships will be crucial for companies making the transition to sustainability and offers approaches and examples of keen interest. Special thanks to Capstone Publishers, U.K., for their gracious cooperation.
We investigate the association between corporate firm performance and the level and stability of institutional ownership within a simultaneous equation model. Our main ownership stability measures include ownership persistence and the time-lengths over which investors hold non-zero shares or maintain their shareholding. We find that there is a positive relationship between firm performance and institutional ownership stability, accounting for the shareholding proportion. This relationship is robust to the employment of ownership turnover measures used in the literature and consistent with the view that stable institutional investors play an effective role in monitoring. When we disaggregate institutional investors into pressure-insensitive and pressure-sensitive categories, we find that stable shareholding of each group has a positive impact on performance, with the first group exerting a larger effect. The channels of the effect include, but are not limited to, decreased information asymmetry and increased incentive-based compensation.
Numerous studies on firm-level data have reported higher average wages in foreign-owned firms than in domestically owned firms. This, however, does not necessarily imply that the individual worker's wage increase with foreign ownership. Using detailed matched employer–employee data on the entire Swedish private sector, we examine the effect of foreign ownership on individual wages, controlling for individual and firm heterogeneity as well as for possible selection bias in foreign acquisitions. We distinguish between foreign greenfields and takeovers and compare foreign-owned firms with both domestic multinationals and local firms. Our results show a considerably smaller wage premium in foreign-owned firms than what has been found in studies conducted at a more aggregate level. Moreover, foreign takeovers of Swedish firms tend to have no or even a negative effect on wages.
Environmentalism in China is under transformation from the traditional command and control model to emphasize the advantages of economic tools and encourage the participation of the public. Firms are much more aware of the importance of environmental issues, and some of them have practiced environmental activities beyond compliance. In order to help understand the driving mechanism of proactive corporate environmental behaviors from the firm's perspective, this paper identifies the drivers affecting the proactive environmental management level (EML(p)) based on the institutional theory, and gives an empirical study on the firms based in Changshu city of Jiangsu Province, China. The usable data, collected from the 117 valid respondents in a questionnaire survey, indicates that EML(p) is still moderately low currently. Less than 10% of the samples are practicing all the six categorized types of voluntary environmental activities. The econometric exercise confirms a significantly positive effect of the externally mimetic pressure on EML(p), which may attribute to a higher sensitivity of Chinese companies to the market factors. However, the roles of the general public and industrial associations are not significant, showing the marginal power of selected normative pressures. Regarding internal factors, firms, which view environmental issues as opportunities and often arrange internal environmental training, are more likely to adopt proactive environmental activities. More concerns from the general public like neighborhood communities and mass media shall be addressed to enhance the normative power to improve EML(p) in China from the future perspective.
This paper focuses on fertility choices in Brazil, a country where soap operas (novelas) portray families that are much smaller than in reality, to study the effects of television on individual behavior. Using Census data for the period 1970-1991, the paper finds that women living in areas covered by the Globo signal have significantly lower fertility. The effect is strongest for women of lower socioeconomic status and for women in the central and late phases of their fertility cycle. Finally, the paper provides evidence that novelas, rather than television in general, affected individual choices.
What are the effects of television, and of role models portrayed in TV programs, on individual behavior? We focus on fertility choices in Brazil, a country where soap operas (novelas) portray families that are much smaller than in reality. We exploit differences in the timing of entry into different markets of Rede Globo, the network that has an effective monopoly on novelas production in this country. Using Census data for the period 1970-1991, we find that women living in areas covered by the Globo signal have significantly lower fertility. The effect is strongest for women of lower socioeconomic status and for women in the central and late phases of their fertility cycle, consistent with stopping behavior. The result is robust to placebo treatments and does not appear to be driven by selection in Globo entry. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that novelas, and not just television, affected individual choices. First, people living in areas covered by the signal were more likely to name their children after novela characters. Second, entry of a network that relied on imported shows did not have a significant impact on fertility.
Accepting a fixed trade-off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress. Studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts, ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation. They typically overestimated compliance costs, neglected innovation offsets, and disregarded the affected industry's initial competitiveness. Rather than simply adding to cost, properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets, allowing companies to improve their resource productivity. Shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward. It is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity. Copyright 1995 by American Economic Association.
Who underreacts to cash-flow news? Evidence from trading between individuals and institutions
- Cohen
The balanced anies on relevant dimensions of sustainability
- Kranic
A study on the effects of innovation quality on the corporate social responsibility-Evidence from the listed companies on Shenzhen A-Share stock market
- Pan
How can green innovation solve the dilemmas of “Harmonious Coexistence”
- Xie