How credit default swap market measures carbon risk.

Given the increasing concerns about the carbon risk's influence on economy, this paper is aimed at exploring the impact of carbon emission on credit risk, measured by credit default swap. By using monthly updated data of 363 unique US companies among a period between 2007 and 2020, we uncover that firm's direct carbon emission increases its CDS spreads, whereas indirect emission is not priced by credit market seriously. Considering dynamic effects of carbon risk, we find a positive correlation between carbon risk and the CDS term structure, which implies that carbon risk's influence on long-term concern of credit risk can be more pronounced. Using exogenous shock: Paris Agreement, our finding remains robust. Finally, we also examine potential channels, including companies' sustainability awareness, green transition willingness, and ability, through which carbon risk is priced among the credit market. This paper provides further evidence of carbon credit premium and contributes to the implications of carbon cutting activities.

Can digital finance reduce carbon emission intensity? A perspective based on factor allocation distortions: evidence from Chinese cities.

The world is facing the challenges of climate change and energy structure adjustments. The role of digital finance, a new branch of business that combines digital technology and traditional financial products, in reducing global carbon emissions needs to be studied. This paper uses panel data on 280 cities in China from 2011 to 2019 to empirically examine the efficacy of digital finance for governing carbon emission reductions and the mechanism by which it does so. The results show that (1) digital finance can facilitate carbon emission reductions and help reduce carbon emission intensity within regions; (2) digital finance helps promote the rational allocation of resources and alleviates factor distortions by encouraging firms to rationally use their own factor endowments so as to reduce carbon emission intensity, which holds robustly after considering the endogenous issues such as possibly omitting variables and collinearity; and (3) differences in geographical location, the vitality of regional innovation and entrepreneurship, regional willingness to protect the environment, and environmental protection levels lead to heterogeneity in the effect of digital finance on carbon emission intensity. Therefore, it is necessary to vigorously develop digital finance as a long-term tool for carbon governance.

Improving City Water Quality through Pollution Reduction with Urban Floodgate Infrastructure and Design Solutions: A Case Study in Wuxi, China.

Floodgate operation is one of the main forms of river regulation in the development and utilization of river basins. It changes the natural structure, flow process, and correlative environment of rivers. However, there is little analysis of the multiple impacts of small floodgate operation on the water environment in river networks and of the regulation patterns of urban floodgate infrastructure on pollution. In this paper, a one-dimensional hydrodynamic-water quality model, MIKE 11, was used, taking Wuxi's two main pollutant indicators-the permanganate index (CODMn) and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N)-to simulate the water quality response of Wuxi's river network based on different design solutions of urban floodgate infrastructure. The results show that among the three design scenarios, the order of the decreasing amplitude of the CODMn and NH3-N concentrations was as follows: 1.4 m design solution scenario > 2.1 m design solution scenario > 0.7 m design solution scenario. Meanwhile, under the 1.4 m scenario, the maximum decrease in the CODMn concentration reached 37.57%, and the maximum decrease in the NH3-N concentration reached 206%. In the entire river network system, the improvement in the water quality in the downstream area was significantly better than that in the upstream area. In addition, under the three scenarios of floodgate operation, the changes in pollutant concentrations during the flood season (June-September) were significantly lower than those during the dry season (October-February) and the flat water season (March-May). The research results can provide theoretical support and new ideas for future research on the ecological operation of small floodgates and related research on the water environment effect.

Does central environmental inspection improves enterprise total factor productivity? The mediating effect of management efficiency and technological innovation.

The strong demand from the public to find new ways to both improve economy and protect nature has been evoked by "pollute first and control later", which is the previous Chinese mode of development. With the new round of central environmental inspection approaching, should the Chinese government continue to intensify its supervision? The policy effect of the first round of central environmental inspection in 2015 can be a good reference. Based on the data from 1498 listed companies during the period between 2014 and 2018, the Levinsohn-Petrin (LP) method was used to measure enterprises' total factor productivity. Also, a propensity score matching-difference in difference (PSM-DID) method was established to explore the impact of central environmental inspection on enterprises' total factor productivity and its impact mechanism. The results indicate that first, central environmental inspection improved the total factor productivity of enterprises by promoting management efficiency and technological innovation. Second, the mediating effect of management efficiency accounts for approximately 16.6% of the total effect, while the mediating effect of technological innovation accounts for only 7.7% of the total effect.

City Centrality, Migrants and Green Inovation Efficiency: Evidence from 106 Cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China.

Based on the panel data of 106 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China from 2007 to 2016, this paper explores the impact of city centrality on the green innovation efficiency and proves the mediation effect of migrants by using spatial econometric model. The results show that there are more and more innovation contacts between cities, and the innovation network is becoming more and more dense. The core cities of the downstream innovation network are mainly Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Wuxi, Changzhou, Suzhou and Hangzhou; the core cities in the midstream are mainly Wuhan, Changsha and Yichun; the core cities in the upstream are Chengdu and Bazhong. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between city centrality and green innovation efficiency. In addition, the influence curve of city centrality on the green innovation efficiency of surrounding cities is also inverted U-shaped. Cities with high city centrality attract a large number of migrants that come from cities with lower centrality to improve the green innovation efficiency, but the green innovation efficiency of cities with low city centrality will decline due to lack of talents.