How does the development of the digital economy influence carbon productivity? The moderating effect of environmental regulation.

Improving carbon productivity is of great significance to China's "30 · 60" carbon target, while the development of the digital economy is a driving force for green transformation. However, few studies discuss the relationship between the digital economy and carbon productivity. We investigate the influence of digital economic development on carbon productivity using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020. Spatial econometric and moderating effects are considered. The results show that (i) digital economy has a positive direct and negative spatial spillover effect on carbon productivity, and this conclusion is still valid after the robustness test and endogeneity test; (ii) digital infrastructure has a greater impact on carbon productivity than digital industrialization and industrial digitalization; (iii) the mechanism analysis shows that environmental regulation negatively moderates the relationship between the digital economy and carbon productivity; (iv) heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of the digital economy on carbon productivity is more obvious in the central region compared to the western region, while it is not significant in the eastern region. Overall, this paper not only provides a new analytical perspective for understanding the improvement of carbon productivity in the digital economy but also provides policy inspiration for promoting carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals.

New urbanization and carbon emissions intensity reduction: Mechanisms and spatial spillover effects.

The advancement of new urbanization policy (NU) and the attainment of double carbon targets play pivotal roles in facilitating high-quality economic development in China. This paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of the mechanism and spatial spillover effects of NU on carbon emission intensity reduction (CEIR), building upon an examination of the nature of NU and the principles of urban carbon pollution control. The research employs a multi-period difference-in-difference model (DID) to explore the causal relationship between NU and CEIR, using panel data from 278 prefecture-level cities spanning the period of 2006 to 2020. Empirical results demonstrate that the implementation of NU resulted in an 8.4 % reduction in carbon emission intensity (CEI). Furthermore, the analysis of the transmission mechanism reveals that NU stimulates green technology innovation and facilitates the development of industrial agglomeration, thus achieving CEIR. The decomposition of the spatial Durbin model indicates significant spatial spillover effects in the effectiveness of NU, signifying its positive impacts not only within the region but also in generating benefits for surrounding areas. Moreover, the dynamic heterogeneity results indicate that entrepreneurial vitality and urbanization rate exhibit dynamic effects on the policy's CEIR effect, both displaying nonlinear enhancement curves. Based on this, the policy implications of this paper include: The government should enhance regional coordinated governance to address carbon emissions pollution in alignment with China's NU. This can be accomplished by effectively harnessing the driving role of green innovation and industrial agglomeration. Additionally, the local government can actively create an entrepreneurial atmosphere and expedite the urbanization process in order to support NU in the implementation and achievement of CEIR.

How does environmental information disclosure affect carbon emissions? Evidence from China.

In the context of global carbon peak and carbon neutrality, the issue of how to effectively encourage enterprises to reduce their carbon emissions has drawn the attention of governments and scholars. This paper uses the difference-in-differences method and joint data (2003-2012) from Chinese industrial firm pollution database and Chinese industrial firm database to evaluate the impacts of environmental information disclosure on enterprises' carbon emissions. We find that environmental information disclosure has a significant effect on enterprises' carbon emission reduction. Moderating effect analysis finds that environmental regulations and punishment strengthen the role of environmental information disclosure in reducing carbon emissions, however, the moderating role of environmental punishment is limited. In addition, mechanism analysis show that environmental information disclosure can reduce carbon emissions by improving their energy structures and encouraging polluting enterprises to withdraw from the market.

The impact of drivers' short-term exposure to air pollution on traffic deaths.

Air pollution may decrease drivers' driving performance thus leading to traffic accidents, but this impact is almost ignored in existing literature. We investigate the short-term effect of air pollution on traffic deaths using the high-dimensional fixed effect model and instrument variable method based on the daily-city panel data in China from 2013 to 2018. The results show that drivers' short-term exposure to air pollution significantly increases the number of traffic deaths. For every 1 ug/m3 increase of PM2.5 concentration each day, the daily number of traffic deaths will increase by 0.64%. The impacts of air pollution on traffic deaths can last for 2 days. We also find that impact varies from different driver groups.The male, the young (age under 22), the elderly (age over 60), and the two-wheeler drivers are more vulnerable. Worse air pollution may associate with more bad driving behaviors and less good manners. In this article, we reveal a new factor that leads to traffic deaths, i.e., air pollution, and we also put forward some prevention strategies which may provide policy references for traffic safety.

The effect of stringent environmental regulation on firms' TFP-new evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in Chongqing's daily penalty policy.

Using data from Chinese industrial firms from 2003 to 2012, this paper utilizes a difference-in-differences approach to investigate the impact of stringent command-and-control environmental regulations on firm productivity through Chongqing's daily penalty policy (DPP). Unlike the previous command-and-control environmental regulations of "low penalty amounts", "one-size-fits-all", and "one-off penalties", the DPP with "high deterrent effect" and "high cost of non-compliance" imposes continuous high fines of a fixed daily amount on persistent environmental violators. This is conducive to improving environmental quality while significantly increasing firms' total factor productivity (TFP). It provides empirical evidence for the validity of the strong Porter hypothesis in developing countries. A series of robustness tests ensure the credibility of these findings. The mechanism analysis shows that DPP can improve TFP of firms by stimulating the innovation compensation effect of firms and crowding out high polluting and inefficient firms in the industry. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the productivity of highly polluting, private, non-exporting and small-scale firms is significantly increased under the influence of DPP. This study provides new ideas for improving command-and-control environmental regulation to bring into play its Porter effect, and offers experiences and insights for regulating firms' emission behaviors to achieve a win-win situation for both economic growth and green development.

The impacts of political hierarchy on corporate pollution emissions: Evidence from a spatial discontinuity in China.

Exploiting Chongqing's promotion to a province-level municipality, this paper investigates the causal effect of political hierarchy on corporate SO2 emissions using a spatial regression discontinuity (RD) design. In 1997, the prefecture-level Chongqing was promoted to a province-level municipality, obtaining a substantial increase in decision-making power over fiscal, personnel and administrative affairs. Given the fact that the areas around the Chongqing-Sichuan border shared the same social, economic, and geographical conditions prior to the treatment, the novel findings show that political hierarchy negatively affects corporate SO2 emissions and Chongqing's enterprises adjacent to the border have a 26% (1-e-0.301) reduction of SO2 emissions comparatively. The effects are robust enough using alternative model specifications and bandwidths. Besides, this paper provides empirical evidence that enterprises of Chongqing have resource-receiving and external-financing advantages owing to its higher political status. These interwoven advantages help enterprises in Chongqing exhibit better financial performance and enable them to conduct energy substitution, improve energy efficiency and adopt more end-of-pipe treatment, thereby mitigating SO2 emissions. Based on these findings, this study provides policy implications by shedding light on the effects of political hierarchy on corporate pollution emissions.

The emission reduction effect of daily penalty policy on firms.

As one of the "four sharp teeth" of China's new environmental protection law, the daily penalty policy which is characterized by high deterrent effect and high violation cost plays an important role in restraining repeated violations of polluting firms. In order to further test the effectiveness of the daily penalty policy in pollution control and emission reduction, this study evaluates the policy through the time-varying difference-in-differences (DID) method using data from Chinese industrial firms from 2003 to 2012. The results show that the daily penalty policy significantly reduced industrial SO2 emissions, which is supported by a series of robustness tests. Further mechanistic tests found that the daily penalty policy can reduce emissions by promoting the use of clean energy at the front-end prevention and increasing pollution control equipment and product innovation at end-governance. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the daily penalty policy has a significant emission reduction effect on low energy consumption firms, large-scale firms and firms in clean industry. The SO2 emission of foreign-funded firms is more reduced than that of state-owned and private firms. In addition, the level of emission reduction by exporting firms and firms in a mature recession are more affected by this policy. This study validates the effect of the daily penalty policy on emission reduction of firms. We found that the stringent command-and-control environmental regulations can also effectively encourage firms to control pollution and promote the transformation of firms toward long-term green development strategies and energy-saving and emission-reducing production patterns, and achieve a reasonable combination with market-based incentive environmental regulations. It provides new ideas and inspiration for implementation and improvement of the daily penalty policy and the strategic deployment of environmental governance in China.

The impact of government-enterprise collusion on environmental pollution in China.

Pollution emissions in China are associated with the relationship between local governments and enterprises, especially in those cities with government-enterprise collusion (GEC). We evaluate the causal relationships between GEC and SO2 emissions at the enterprise level, by adopting the Propensity Score Matching-Difference in Difference method from a comprehensive environmental database. The empirical results show that, compared with those in the cities without collusion, SO2 emissions of enterprises in the colluded cities increase by 11.3% (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.041-0.186). These GEC effects are more substantial in the cities whose regional officials work with longer terms, in the foreign-owned or small-scale enterprises, and the labour-intensive industries. The findings suggest the existing environment and personnel management policies in China should be adjusted for more sustainable development.