Measuring informational efficiency of the European carbon market — A quantitative evaluation of higher order dependence

This paper introduces a new method for measuring nonlinear predictability in financial price changes: the so-called intermittency coefficient, a parameter of the multifractal random walk model by Bacry et al. (2001). As the intermittency coefficient can quantify the degree of nonlinear deviation from a random walk, we employ its estimates from financial data as a proxy for the loss of financial market efficiency. In addition, we propose a new statistical test of the random walk hypothesis. In an empirical application using data from the largest currently existing market for tradable pollution permits, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), we show that the degree of efficiency of this market remains largely unchanged over the period of observation 2008–2019. This suggests that the market has reached a mature state: informational efficiency in Phase III remains at a level comparable to Phase II. What is more, the EU ETS is found to be more efficient than the US stock market. This result, surprising as such, is largely attributable to the lower exposure to global economic shocks of the EU ETS.     

Does financing strategy accelerate corporate energy transition? Evidence from green bonds

With energy transition becoming an urgent priority for companies worldwide, practitioners and policymakers are urging them to finance climate-friendly projects. This paper investigates how the issuance of green bonds affects firms' carbon emissions and environmental performance. Our results show that green bond issuance significantly improves firms' overall environmental performance and their capacities to create new environmental technologies and processes. However, green bond issuance has a less clear effect on carbon emissions intensity and requires additional time (one or more years) before being able to improve the emissions intensity. Taken together, our study's findings clearly highlight the importance of green bonds in financing energy transition in the corporate sector and provide evidence to encourage policymakers to strengthen the legal framework relating to their issuance.     

行业视角下减排成本估算及减排路径研究

碳达峰碳中和是中国经济发展环境治理的战略目标,减排成本与减排路径是该战略实施中两大现实问题。基于行业视角,利用投入产出方法,对行业减排成本、技术减排效应及减排路径展开研究,基本结论如下：①行业减排成本差异大,整体减排成本逐年上升。在三个代表性年份行业最高与最低减排成本相差40-60倍,减排成本绝对差值在1500-3000$/t。在2000-2010年间, 32个行业减排成本均有不同程度的上升, 全社会整体减排成本上升了56.98%。②技术进步的减排贡献较大,部分行业技术减排有限。在产出固定假设下,2000-2010年技术进步实现累计减排57.09亿t,累计技术减排率达到47.88%；但在旅游、住宿餐饮等行业技术减排率为负,技术因素导致的排放不减反增。③行业减排路径应遵循从高碳到低碳的顺序。基于减排成本与技术减排两大因素的减排路径规划显示,优先和重点减排行业主要集中在能源生产供给、加工制造、交通运输、采矿及设备制造等高能耗高排放行业；可相对延后和非重点减排行业主要为食品烟草等传统加工制造业以及金融、房地产等现代服务业。     

Carbon emissions,corporate governance,and staggered boards

Carbon emissions have been identified as a major cause of global warming and are harmful to the environment. Given the seriousness of climate changes, businesses are encouraged to adopt corporate strategies to improve environmental performance. Staggered boards (or classified boards) are one of the controversial corporate governance devices being employed by corporations that protect managers from the market for corporate control. This paper explores whether staggered boards can be a useful business strategy to improve carbon emissions. Relying on a novel data set in which the presence of a staggered board is identified through advanced machine learning algorithms and textual analysis, we find that staggered boards bring about significantly worse emission performance by 10.67%. Our results corroborate the premise that staggered boards insulate self-interested managers from market discipline and thus exacerbate agency problems, resulting in more unfavorable outcomes. Further analysis validates the results, that is, propensity score matching, entropy balancing, instrumental-variable analysis, and generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic panel data estimation. Importantly, we include firm fixed effects to account for unobserved heterogeneity. Our findings indicate that de-staggered boards may help improve emission performance.     

技术创新、产业结构升级对能源消费的影响研究——以长三角地区为例北大核心

技术创新和产业结构升级是长三角地区优化能源消费、提高资源利用效率的关键。本文在分析技术创新、产业结构升级对能源消费的作用机制的基础上,运用长三角地区2000~2020年的面板数据构建面板向量自回归模型(PVAR)进行实证分析研究。研究结果表明,技术创新和产业结构升级短期内会造成能源消费的增加,而在长期对能源消费均表现出显著的抑制作用;技术创新、产业结构调整对能源消费的影响程度是逐步增强的,而能源消费自身的惯性作用则不断减弱;在长期中,产业结构升级和能源消费自身对能源消费的变动影响最大,技术创新影响相对较小。     

地方政府竞争、科技创新与碳排放

在阐述地方政府竞争、科技创新影响碳排放内在机理的基础上，以2004—2019年省级面板数据为样本分析目前我国单位国内生产总值二氧化碳排放的空间特征，并采用固定效应模型及门槛模型实证分析地方政府竞争、科技创新及二者交互项对碳排放的影响。研究表明：我国单位国内生产总值二氧化碳排放量总体水平不断降低，碳排放量最大的地区集中在西北地区，最小的地区集中在北京以及东南部沿海地区；地方政府竞争、科技创新及二者交互项对碳排放均具有显著抑制作用，且科技创新对地方政府竞争驱动碳减排存在门槛效应；通过异质性分析发现，在不同的经济区和不同的产业发展水平下，地方政府竞争与科技创新对碳排放的作用效果存在差异性。因此，应当充分利用地方政府的“趋良竞争”，强化科技创新对碳减排的促进作用，推动产业升级，以实现可持续发展。     

旅游收入、交通基础设施和二氧化碳排放——基于PVAR模型的多变量经济学分析

本文基于中国30个省级行政区2000—2019年的面板数据,运用广义矩方法估计的面板向量自回归模型,建立一个包含旅游、交通基础设施和二氧化碳排放的多变量计量经济学模型,探讨中国旅游、交通基础设施和二氧化碳排放之间的动态关系及其空间异质性。主要研究结论：（1）全国和东中部地区存在旅游收入和交通基础设施之间的双向格兰杰因果关系,铁路里程对旅游收入的贡献要大于公路里程。（2）全国和东部地区存在旅游收入和二氧化碳排放之间的双向因果关系,旅游收入对东部地区碳排放增长的贡献最大,对西部地区碳排放增长的贡献最小。（3）公路和铁路对二氧化碳的贡献率在中部地区最大。总体上,交通基础设施与二氧化碳排放之间的格兰杰因果关系不显著。本文首次建立了一个多变量经济学分析框架综合性地讨论中国旅游收入、交通基础设施和二氧化碳排放之间的关联。文章提出的研究框架对不同空间区域和尺度的研究和实践均具有一定的启示意义。     

Why is Japan’s carbon emissions from road transportation declining?

Average fuel efficiency of vehicles improved substantially over the last three decades in Japan. Yet, the carbon emissions from on-road passenger vehicles continued to increase until 2000, and then turned to a steadily declining trend. We empirically investigate this disparity. To that end, we apply an analogue of the Copeland-Taylor decomposition, combined with an empirically estimated behavioral model of car ownership and utilization choice, to economically decompose vehicle carbon emissions into the scale, composition, and technique effects over our study period, 1990–2015. We find that exogenous demographic changes such as population size, driver’s license holdings, or labor migration across regions can only explain this disparity partially. After accounting for endogenous changes in household’s geographically-explicit transport demand by the estimated behavioral model, the predicted emissions match the time path of the observed emissions surprisingly well. Of all the factors in the behavioral model, the fuel cost per unit of driving accounts for the largest share of the total variation in the observed emissions. Our result indicates that 60% of the technique effect is offset by the perverse effect of induced transport demand due to the lower fuel cost. Importantly, the induced demand comes from both the intensive margin (driving) and the extensive margin (car ownership).     

Examining the carbon emission impact of livelihood transitions in pro-poor tourism

This study examines carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission changes from livelihood transitions during tourism development to assess the environmental impact of pro-poor tourism (PPT) in China. The results indicate that livelihood transitions during PPT increased household income but also produced more CO₂ emissions. CO₂ emissions vary depending on factors including livelihood types after transition, income and household sizes, etc. The CO₂ per unit of income from tourism-based livelihoods is higher than from non-tourism-based livelihoods. Different livelihood strategies post transition also affect emissions. Practical suggestions that may mitigate emissions while not compromising residents’ income levels are provided.     

“双碳”目标下河南省旅游业碳排放脱钩关系研究

“双碳”目标是中国“十四五”时期乃至更长时期内所有产业发展的政策导向和重要约束，旅游业作为战略性支柱产业之一，是碳减排的重要领域，河南作为旅游大省，随着旅游业的快速发展，与旅游相关的碳排放也逐年增加。借助“自下而上”法测度2006—2020年河南省旅游业碳排放量，并利用Tapio脱钩模型测算旅游业碳排放脱钩水平。研究发现，河南省旅游经济发展与碳排放的脱钩关系以弱脱钩为主，多种脱钩关系并存。因此建议，从加强政府引导监督、优化能源消费结构、鼓励低碳技术创新、开发低碳旅游产品、引导游客低碳消费等方面提升河南省旅游业绿色低碳发展水平。