New insights to Pollution and Carbon Reduction Effects of China Pilot Carbon markets: Perspectives on Technological Progress and Corporate Disincentives
Description
Panel data from 271 prefecture-level cities in China (excluding Tibet and Xinjiang owing to data availability) from 2006 to 2021 were utilized to empirically examine the effects of the pilot carbon market on pollution and carbon reduction. The sample encompasses both pilot and non-pilot areas to investigate how the carbon market influences the relative number of enterprises in pilot cities. The study period concludes in 2021 due to the launch of China's national unified carbon market in July 2021. green technological innovation (Green), industrial structure upgrading (Ind), energy structure (Energy), and the relative number of enterprises (Firm) were selected as mediating variables. Green technological innovation is measured using the logarithmic value of green invention patent authorization. Industrial structure upgrading is quantified by the ratio of tertiary industry added value to secondary industry added value. The energy structure is quantified by the ratio of standard coal from the total electricity consumption and LPG gas supply to the total tons of standard coal in the whole society. The change in the relative number of firms is measured by the mean value of the number of firms. The detailed calculations are as follows:. "Firm=" "x_it" /"μ" "x_it" denotes the number of above-scale industrial enterprises in city i in year t. μ represents the mean value of the number of above-scale industrial enterprises across all cities from 2006 to 2021, indicating the city's number of enterprises relative to the national average. Gdp: Logarithmic value of GDP Fin: Ratio of loan balance of financial institutions to regional GDP at the end of the year Struc: Ratio of secondary and tertiary sector output to GDP Sci_edu: Logarithm of the ratio of education and science and technology expenditures to general government expenditures Fdi: ratio of actual utilization of foreign capital to regional GDP. The environmental pollution index comprises three indicators: sulfur dioxide, PM2.5, and Industrial fumes and dust emission. The improved entropy weight TOPSIS method is employed to construct a comprehensive environmental pollution index.
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Data sources include the China Urban Statistical Yearbook, China Energy Statistical Yearbook, prefecture-level city statistical bulletins, and China Research Data Service Platform (CNRDS: https://www.cnrds.com). PM2.5 data are derived from the Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group of Dalhousie University, Canada (https://sites.wustl.edu/acag/datasets/surface-PM2-5). Missing values were imputed using linear interpolation.