ACHIEVING EMPLOYMENT DIVIDEND IN THE POST-COVID-19 ERA: AN EXPLORATION FROM CHINA'S CARBON MARKET

Under the pressure of economic uncertainty and environmental protection in the post-COVID-19 era, achieving a new round of employment dividends has become one practical choice. Using the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2007 to 2019, this study estimates the employment outcomes of carbon ETS pilots based on the difference-in-differences model. The findings of this study indicate the following: (1) Carbon ETS pilots can positively increase employment scales with an average effect of 7.12%. (2) This promoting effect will become more significant in provinces with high education levels, provinces with high average wages, and eastern region provinces. But there is no obvious difference between gender. (3) This positive effect can be transferred and enhanced by market competition and energy consumption. At the crossroads of green economic recovery, it will be greatly beneficial to formulate the national carbon market development roadmap under the carbon neutrality strategy.

Green bonds and corporate performance: A potential way to achieve green recovery

In the post-COVID-19 era, the importance of green finance in green recovery is underlined. As a financial instrument serving green development, green bonds promise to raise funds to support climate- and environment-friendly projects. However, whether green bonds can improve corporate performance is of great concern to companies, affecting the long-term intrinsic driving force of green bond issuance. This study applies the dynamic difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the impact of green bonds on corporate performance and its potential pathway by using the panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2020. The main findings are as follows: (1) Green bonds can significantly increase corporate performance by an overall effect of 1.65%. (2) The positive effect of green bonds could be transferred and enhanced by possible mechanisms, including internal green patents and external social reputations. (3) The overall effect of green bonds varies among companies due to different ownership and eco-geographical locations. (4) Green bonds would motivate better corporate performance if the company is related to renewable energy or located in provinces with high renewable energy consumption. Therefore, it is necessary to promote green bonds, ultimately helping to achieve green recovery.

Achieving Employment Dividend in the Post-Covid-19 Era: An Exploration from China’s Carbon Market

Under the pressure of economic uncertainty and environmental protection in the post-COVID-19 era, achieving a new round of employment dividends has become one practical choice. Using the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2007 to 2019, this study estimates the employment outcomes of carbon ETS pilots based on the difference-in-differences model. The findings of this study indicate the following: (1) Carbon ETS pilots can positively increase employment scales with an average effect of 7.12%. (2) This promoting effect will become more significant in provinces with high education levels, provinces with high average wages, and eastern region provinces. But there is no obvious difference between gender. (3) This positive effect can be transferred and enhanced by market competition and energy consumption. At the crossroads of green economic recovery, it will be greatly beneficial to formulate the national carbon market development roadmap under the carbon neutrality strategy.

The effect of carbon emission trading scheme on energy efficiency: Evidence from China

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global economic recession and even changed its development pattern. Improving energy efficiency has become one of the best choices worldwide to achieve green recovery in the post-COVID-19 era. Therefore, this study explores the effect of carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) pilots on energy efficiency by the difference-in-differences (DID) model, using panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2009 to 2020. The following results are obtained: (1) Carbon ETS pilots could significantly increase energy efficiency by an overall effect of 1.82%, among which technical efficiency might be improved more obviously than others;(2) The average effect of carbon ETS pilots may differ between provinces because of some economic–regional factors, being more significant in regions with a large number of employees and high wages;(3) This positive effect is transferred through industrial structure and R&D investment.

COVID-19, recovery policies and the resilience of EU ETS

COVID-19 pandemic and its recovery bring opportunities and threats for global climate governance and further challenge climate related assets. In this study, we analyze the efficiency of government response policies and fiscal policies on green recovery by observing the variation characteristics of carbon allowance prices in the EU emission trading system (EU ETS). Using the OLS and threshold methods in the original time scales, we find that: (1) The EUA prices had an inverted U-shaped relationship with the number of new confirmed cases and deaths. (2) Government response policies had a better effect than fiscal policies when mitigating the negative impact of the pandemic. After decomposing and reconstructing the time series, the multiscale analysis indicates that: (3) The carbon price fluctuated in the short term with the increasing number of newly confirmed cases (or deaths) but gradually recovered due to the recovery policies. (4) Government response policies had a “stop-loss” effect in the short term, and then working alongside fiscal policies, sustained and promoted the development of the EU ETS and green recovery. In the post-COVID-19 era, we suggest the combination of various policies to convert the current health crisis into opportunities for climate change mitigation.