Measuring Green Productivity Growth for China's Manufacturing Sectors: 1991–2000*

Over the past two decades, China has sustained rapid economic growth of 8–10 percent, part of which is attributed to the positive total factor productivity (TFP) growth. However, this extraordinary economic performance has been accompanied by severe environmental pollution and associated health damage. The conventional TFP method is biased in interpreting the progress of technology change because it does not consider non‐marketable residues, such as environmental pollution, and, hence, efficiency improvements in terms of pollution abatement technology and environmentally friendly management are ignored. This bias might direct our attention to less efficient use of environmental friendly abatement technologies or send wrong signals to policy‐makers. To address this issue, the present paper applies a modified welfare‐based green TFP approach, treating environmental damage as non‐desirable (negative) residual output. Therefore, environmental efficiency is taken into account to accurately interpret technological progress from a social welfare point of view. Based on a national time‐series input–output table, historical capital and labor input data for China and sectoral level air pollution emission data from 1991 to 2000, the empirical results suggest that with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, many pollution intensive sectors, such as electricity, primary metal and chemical industries, improved their environmental efficiency in the late 1990s. However, because of the weak environmental regulations in construction and transportation, and in sectors primarily composed of small private or township and village industrial enterprises, firms within these industries contributed to increasing environmental degradation.     

Have Industrial Robots Improved Pollution Reduction? A Theoretical Approach and Empirical Analysis

To investigate whether industrial robots have improved the ecological environment, this study integrated the adoption of robot technology and pollution abatement into Melitz's heterogeneous firm model. This showed that using robots in production can lower firms' pollution intensity by increasing their abatement investments, and this reduction effect is greater for higher polluting firms and those subject to weaker local environmental regulations. These theoretical expectations were then confirmed through a series of empirical investigations based on Bartik instrument regressions, with multiple robustness checks as well as heterogeneity and mechanism analyses. This paper adds to the literature on the relationships between automation technologies and green transformation. It shows that in the pursuit of economic growth and environmental protection, it is necessary for policymakers to shift from pollution control to technical support for traditional manufacturing firms.     

Pollution abatement costs and technical changes under different environmental regulations

Balancing economic growth and environmental protection is a global issue that requires both scientific and economic consideration. In this study, we employed a joint production model that accounted for both favorable and unfavorable outputs to calculate the changes in pollution abatement costs (PACs) and the decomposition of SO₂ emissions in China's industrial sector from 2001– to 2015. Command-and-control and tradable permit environmental regulation scenarios were specified to assess PACs and changes in these costs associated with changes in technology, input, and unfavorable output production. Our empirical results show that the PACs increased by 0.06% and 0.34% under command-and-control and tradable permit scenarios, respectively. Further analyses of these changes indicated that regulated technology grew faster than unregulated under both scenarios; overall, command-and-control regulations were more conducive to green technological innovations. Both types of environmental regulation reduced industrial SO₂ emissions, and the difference between them was minimal. Under the two scenarios, the pollution emissions intensity decreased. Moreover, because the tradable permit policy improved favorable output production via the optimal allocation of resources, the intensity of pollution emissions was significantly lower. As there were advantages to both regulatory options, their balanced application is vital in the short-run. In the long-term, measures should be taken to ensure the full trading of SO₂ emission rights. The focus of environmental policies should gradually shift to an emissions trading system to achieve the balanced development of China's environment and economy.     

经济增长、环境管制与污染排放

文章通过构建经济增长、环境管制与污染排放的动态模型,分析在政府环境管制约束下的经济增长与环境污染问题.研究发现:政府环境管制越严厉,越有利于稳态下的经济增长速度的提高和污染排放的减少.文章还发现消费的时间贴现率越小、物质资本的产出弹性越小、人力资本的增长速度越快,越有利于稳态下的经济增长速度的提高和污染排放的减少.物质产品消费对消费者致用的影响程度越小、污染排放对消费者效用的影响程度越大,越有利于稳态下经济增长速度的提高,但却会增加污染排放.文章的创新点体现在:提出在一定条件下通过适度降低经济增长率来实现环境质量改善的新观点.     

政府政绩追求与环境污染——基于空间面板的实证研究

随着环境污染的恶化,地方政府对于环境治理的激励逐渐受到各界的关注。利用中国30个省市2004—2013年间的二氧化硫排放强度为样本,以空间计量模型实证研究了政府政绩追求与环境污染之间的关系。研究结果表明：中国各省市二氧化硫排放强度在空间分布上具有显著的空间溢出效应,且这种空间溢出效应逐年增加;以政府财政收入、经济增长率、就业率为政府政绩考核的指标与环境污染之间存在着显著的正向关系。研究不仅为政府治理环境污染问题提供了有益的经验证据,也为中国地方政府制定更为完善的政绩考核标准提供了借鉴。     

环境污染治理与经济增长:模型与中国的经验研究

通过建立一个人力资本内生增长模型,将环境及环境污染治理引入内生增长框架下进行分析,其中重点探讨了在达到均衡增长路径过程中经济增长、环境污染与环境污染治理的关系,同时考察了维持可持续发展需要具备的条件。在此基础上,运用中国的数据对理论模型的一些结果进行了计量检验。结果表明,清洁要素以及技术的使用是可持续发展的关键,中国对环境污染一直以来缺乏足够的重视,目前仍然需要加大环境污染治理力度,提高环境污染治理的效率,地方政府的行为在其中会起到重要作用。     

中国低碳经济发展的现状、存在问题及对策

当前我国发展低碳经济存在较多问题,如能源加工转换效率仍然较低,以高能耗推动经济增长,经济快速增长与环境污染并存,低碳经济的发展受产业结构、能源结构、资金科技水平的影响,发展低碳经济的相关政策措施有待完善。为此,我国需要制定相关措施,如需要进一步加强环境污染治理;调整产业结构;优化能源结构,提高能源利用率;进一步加强政府在节能减排中的关键作用;发展生态环保产业,提升社会的生态和经济效益,真正实现低碳经济发展。     

珠三角区域跨界环境问题的经济分析

由于忽视了环境外部性的存在,目前珠江三角洲地区的跨界污染问题很严重;通过空间计量经济模型实证,发现某地区的污染排放量不止和本地区的经济增长有关系,也受邻近城市经济发展水平的影响,珠三角的环境质量与经济增长在空间上表现出相互作用;最后给出了解决跨界环境问题的对策建议。     

Are China's trade interests overestimated? Evidence from firms’ importing behavior and pollution emissions

Importing is an important driving force for a country's economic growth. While importing promotes the expansion of economic scale, does it also lead the increase of pollution emissions in production? In this paper, we establish a micro theoretical model to analyze the impacts of importing on firms’ environmental performance, and then use the data of China's manufacturing firms for empirical tests. We show that the importing of intermediate goods or capital goods will lead to the increase of firms’ production scale, and thereby increasing their total emissions, which suggests that China's environment will be deteriorated by importing. On the other hand, importing also has some positive environmental effects that firms will increase their abatement investment after importing intermediate goods or capital goods, thus firms’ emission intensity can be effectively reduced. Altogether, this paper provides important evidence on the impacts of importing on pollution emissions at product-level. We suggest that when analyzing China's interests in trade, the environmental effects of trade should be taken into consideration, otherwise China's gains from trade will be overestimated. This paper also has important implications that while developing the economy through international trade, the government should strengthen environmental protection and advocate green trade.     

The capital tax paradox in a greening economy

We adopt a simple model of endogenous growth with polluting capital and a fixed budget for aggregate emissions. Pollution abatement efficiency is growing over time due to technical progress. We find that long-run capital and consumption are inversely related to the initial capital stock. Capital taxation does not harm the economy but actually raises long-run consumption and production, which we call the “capital tax paradox.” The reason for this surprising result is that in an economy with a binding carbon policy, early abundance of polluting capital is not a blessing but a curse. It is preferable to have a large capital stock when abatement efficiency has grown sufficiently large. The paper also provides novel results on the impact of pollution intensity and the rate of technical progress on the greening of the economy and the pollution permit prices. In the quantitative part, we calibrate model and study economic growth under different assumptions on the basic model parameters.

     

Does energy substitution affect carbon dioxide emissions – Income relationship?

Considerable discussion has taken place during the last decade regarding the role of economic growth in determining environmental quality. Using data from 30 OECD countries for the period 1960–2003 and the nonparametric method of generalized additive models, which enables us to use flexible functional forms, this paper examines the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for carbon dioxide (CO₂). We find that the reduction of coal share in energy use has a significant effect on CO₂. Our results imply that economic growth is not sufficient to decrease CO₂ emissions.     

CO2 Emissions Embodied in China＇s Foreign Trade： An Investigation from the Perspective of Global Vertical Specialization

In light of the growth in vertically specialized in global trade, the present paper uses input output tables from the World Input-Output Database to construct an environmental multi regional input-output model to calculate the CO2 emissions embodied in China＇s international trade during 1995-2009. The advantage of this model lies in its incorporation of the re exported CO2 emissions component embodied in trade and its ability to differentiate domestic sourced CO2 emissions from foreign-sourced CO2 emissions in trade. The results show that carbon emissions embodied in both China＇s exports and imports increased significantly during 1995-2009. One important reason for this is that the re-exported carbon emissions embodied in China＇s imported intermediate inputs increased substantially during this period. Our research reveals that accelerating the transformation of trade pattern and upgrading processing trade should be emphasized in the formulation of policy to prompt CO 2 emissions abatement in China.     

The health costs of the industrial leap forward in China: Evidence from the sulfur dioxide emissions of coal-fired power stations

In this study, we attempt to empirically test the effects of air pollution on public health in China. Using three-stage least squares (3SLS) to solve the potential endogeneity problem in sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions, we find that air pollution has significant negative effects on public health. Specifically, a 1% increase in SO₂ emissions is found to lead to 0.067 and 0.004 more deaths per 100,000 population due to respiratory diseases and lung cancer, respectively. In terms of absolute magnitude, every one million ton increase in SO₂ emissions results in 0.735 and 0.052 extra deaths due to respiratory diseases and lung cancer per 100,000 population, respectively. Moreover, SO₂ emissions result in 230,000 extra deaths every year and the related economic costs over the study period amount to RMB 8.179 billion.     

环境质量与中国城市发展沉浮:人力资本视角的解释

环境质量日益成为影响中国城市品质和高质量发展的重要因素。本文采用中国人口普查、夜间灯光和基于卫星反演的大气污染等数据,分析空气污染引致人力资本选择性流动,进而带来的城市长期经济增长效应。结果发现,空气污染并没有显著影响城市人口规模变化,但是降低了城市经济增速和增长质量。以PM_2.5和SO₂为代表的空气污染导致城市大学及以上学历人口显著流出,进而带来城市人均夜间灯光亮度值和GDP增长率的下降。本文进一步基于“两控区”政策,反向论证了环境规制政策能够带来空气质量改善,从而减缓高人力资本的流出,促进经济增长。本文从经验上分析了环境规制、环境质量、经济增长之间的关系,也为中国城市兴衰格局提供了一个基于环境视角的解释。     

Evaluating public participation impact on environmental protection and ecological efficiency in China: Evidence from PITI disclosure

The industrial pollution caused by China's unprecedent economic expansion seriously imperils public health, giving rise to public's high demand for better environmental quality. The paper employs the difference-in-differences (DID) methodology to conduct a quasi-natural experiment based on the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI) to evaluate the public participation impact on pollution emissions reduction and environment technology efficiency. The results show that PITI information disclosure has a positive influence on pollution emissions reduction, however, some existing literatures may overstate the effect of public participation on environment improvement in China, the empirical results show that government administrative measures still play essential role at current stage. The paper also finds that the influence of public participation exists in eastern China rather than in central and western China. In addition, the results of using environment technology efficiency as outcome variable show insignificant effect, but eastern China has positive environment technology efficiency, suggesting that economic development may increase enterprise technological input, hence achieving mutually beneficial achievements of economy and ecological efficiency.     

Dynamic simulation and environmental policy analysis: beyond comparative statics and the environmental Kuznets curve

The paper presents a dynamic simulation model for the quantitativeanalysis of environmental policy, incorporating key featuresof technical progress in abatement and an explicit role forpolicy in determining costs and pollution over time. The modelis used to develop scenarios for PM, SO₂, and CO₂ abatementin developing countries, and the results are compared with thosethat emerge from studies of Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC)of economic growth and pollution. The latter, by neglectingthe roles of policy and technical progress in pollution abatement,underestimate dramatically the possibilities for countries toreduce pollution while raising incomes.     

能源消费与环境污染对经济增长的影响分析——基于空间面板模型的实证研究

文章运用空间误差模型,考察了2000-2012年中国大陆各个省际区域能源消费、环境污染与经济增长的关系。研究表明:中国区域能源消费、环境污染与经济增长存在明显的空间自相关性,不同省份间的经济增长率空间集聚分布规律明显;考察期内的能源消费、环境污染对经济增长呈现正相关性;四种空间关系均会对经济增长及其空间相关性产生影响,其中几何中心距离关系影响最为明显;模型均显示出区域间的正向相关,而以空间固定时间不固定效应相关性最高。据此提出要结合区域间的能源禀赋、环境约束等实行差异化的政策,以保证能源、环境与经济的正向互动与协调发展。     

Regional variation of energy-related industrial CO2 emissions mitigation in China

This paper analyzes the reasons for regional variations in industrial CO₂ emissions mitigation. First, regional industrial CO₂ emissions during the “11th Five-Year Plan” period are calculated based on the presented method. Then a two-level perfect decomposition method, LMDI, is used to find the nature of the factors that influence the changes in energy-related industrial CO₂ emissions in nine economic regions in China. The changes of industrial CO₂ emissions are decomposed into energy emission factor effect, energy structure effect, energy intensity effect, industrial structure effect and economic output effect. As the results suggest, rapid growth of industry is the most important factor responsible for the increase in CO₂ emissions. The adjustment of both industrial structure and energy structure contributes to the increase of CO₂ emissions slightly. Energy consumption per unit GDP is the most important measure of CO₂ emissions and the energy emission factor by itself also makes a weeny contribution to CO₂ reduction as a result of electricity generation efficiency enhancement.     

环境污染及其治理途径的经济学分析

本文从经济学角度来分析我国转型时期的环境污染及其治理途径问题。主要运用外部性、公共物品属性、产权缺失以及博弈论原理分析了环境污染的原因,指出"市场失灵"和"政府失灵"是导致环境污染的经济根源。然后分析了环境污染与经济发展的辨证关系,并针对我国国情提出了当前治理环境污染的对策性建议。     

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity of industrial pollution in China

Due to the lack of effective institutional constraints, the negative externality from industrial production will lead to environmental pollution and spatial spillover on neighboring units. Because the self-purification capacity of the environmental system is limited, a strong time effect is witnessed. Time lag and spatial spillover need to be considered to mitigate the effect of industrial pollution. Using geographically weighted regression (GWR) and geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR), this paper decomposes the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of industrial pollution in China. Results show a significant spatio-temporality in the evolution of the provincial-level industrial pollution since 2007. As the major participants, state-owned enterprises play a leading role in the state economy and greatly affect pollutant emissions. In the central and eastern regions, an increasing proportion of state-owned output values is related to the decrease of industrial pollution emissions, whereas western regions witness an opposite trend. Emissions charge plays a positive role in curbing the emission from industrial enterprises in the central and western regions. A better understanding of the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of industrial pollution is the prerequisite in the alleviation of industrial pollutions to achieve a sustainable economic growth.