Journal of Economic Surveys最新文献

This paper investigates the impact of climate change on international portfolio allocations of global funds. We select the heat wave disasters in Europe in 2018 as a quasi-natural experiment and employ the DID framework. Our findings indicate that global funds would reduce their holdings in the affected country after heat wave disasters. The congestion of inland waterways and electricity shortages during the heatwave have resulted in production delays, thereby transmit risks to the financial sector. Countries with higher foreign exposure experience a larger scale of capital outflow after heat waves; while countries with great institutional quality and resilience demonstrate greater capacity to withstand heat wave disasters. The funds with lower risk tolerance are more sensitive to climate change. Additionally, domestic funds will remain in their home countries post-heatwave when foreign capitals flow away. These findings have important policy implications, and countries with high climate risks should carefully monitor the capital flows. In order to reduce the impact of climate risks, it is crucial to improve the quality of institution and efficiency of government as well as to implement effective disaster prevention and mitigation measures.

This paper investigates the adoption patterns of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification in China, analyzing data from 2010 to 2021. We find that builders' choices of certification levels are positively correlated within each province. However, for commercial buildings, builders differentiate from each other in the choice of certification levels. The study also identifies spatial spillovers of LEED certification across nearby provinces. We propose potential explanations for these findings and discuss their policy implications. The results suggest that the design of certification schemes should account for the strategic behavior of firms. Additionally, regional policies promoting green building certifications may have spillover effects, encouraging adoption in neighboring regions.

We offer an updated and comprehensive review of recent studies on the impacts of climate change, particularly global warming, on poverty and inequality, paying special attention to data sources as well as empirical methods. While studies consistently find negative impacts of higher temperatures on poverty across different geographical regions, with higher vulnerability especially in poorer Sub-Saharan Africa, there is inconclusive evidence on climate change impacts on inequality. Further analyzing a recently constructed global database at the subnational unit level derived from official national household income and consumption surveys, we find that temperature change has larger impacts in the short term and more impacts on chronic poverty than transient poverty. The results are robust to different model specifications and measures of chronic poverty and are more pronounced for poorer countries. Our findings offer relevant inputs into current efforts to fight climate change.

China's carbon market is far from being integrated. This paper studies how carbon emissions reduction and carbon market integration affect China's aggregate productivity and welfare via a quantitative spatial general equilibrium model with $�{\mathrm{CO}}_2$ as a by-product of production. We find that (1) were carbon emission rights to be allowed to be traded across regions, (i) if there is no technological growth, China's overall productivity and real GDP would increase by 10.26%, and 27.19% respectively, and welfare would decline slightly by 0.92%; (ii) if the technology grows at the present growth rate, China's total output, real GDP and welfare would increase by 9.97, 38.57, and 7.79%, respectively; (2) were nine regional carbon trading markets integrated, China's overall productivity, real GDP and welfare would increase by 4.35, 29.17, and 7.75%, respectively.  Carbon market integration enables China to achieve economic development at a lower $�{\mathrm{CO}}_2$ cost.

The economic consequences of water efficiency that results from water policies remains controversial. Studies on how water rights trading (WRT), which allocates water resources in and across industries, influences corporate efficiency can reveal the behavioral response of market participants to increase water efficiency. Considering the WRT pilot implemented in 2014 as a quasi-natural experiment, we adopt the difference-in-difference-in-differences method to evaluate its impact on corporate total factor productivity (TFP). Our findings show that WRT significantly stimulates the TFP of firms with high water costs. This effect is achieved by promoting water-related green innovation and optimizing resource allocation instead of alleviating corporate risks. Furthermore, the impact of WRT is more pronounced in areas with lower levels of water endowment and market development. The research findings have strikingly important policy implications regarding water management in China through WRT.