Economic Analysis and Policy最新文献

Developing a scientific environmental management system is the institutional foundation to address transboundary environmental governance issues. Based on the perspective of cross-regional pollution control, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of the reform of the division and adjustment of environmental protection supervision powers between the central and local governments on cross-regional pollution control. The results show that both significantly reduce the air pollution emission level of the border prefecture-level cities, but the emission reduction efforts of the provincial border prefecture-level cities are lower than the overall average. From the perspective of the institutional reform of this study, in order to realize the compatibility of incentives for intergovernmental environmental governance at all levels, it is necessary to promote the reform of the environmental protection management system with the optimization of the division of intergovernmental environmental protection powers as the core, and improve the performance of cross-regional pollution control.

This study investigates the impact of China’s low-carbon pilot policy on corporate green total factor productivity. Exploiting the staggered rollout of the policy across cities, we employ a difference-in-differences approach and find that the policy significantly increases the green total factor productivity of heavily polluting firms. This effect is driven by improvements in both green technological progress and efficiency. The positive impact is more pronounced for firms facing higher financial constraints, lower product market competition, and lower capital intensity. Textual analysis of annual reports reveals that the policy promotes corporate green total factor productivity by enhancing executives’ environmental awareness and facilitating firms’ green transformation. Our findings highlight the effectiveness of the low-carbon pilot policy in advancing China’s green development agenda and provide policy implications for other economies pursuing sustainable growth.

It is of great significance to explore the role of land supervision in the standardization of local land transactions. We document the DID strategy to systematically evaluate how land audits affect the transactions in the land market. The results show that: (1) land audits have restrained the transactions of low price of industrial lands and the high price of commercial and residential lands, raised the unit price of industrial lands transactions, and reduced the price of commercial and residential lands, and these effects would not exist in the public sectors land transactions; (2) the impacts of land audits are more pronounced in State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and enterprises with large-scale operations and high capital intensity; (3) audits have overall positive significance, which has increased the total investment of local industrial enterprises and reduced the investment bubble. However, there are no deterrent effects. The conclusions have important implications for our understanding of the loss of lands and resources, supervision, and the standardized construction of the trading market.

Due to the unhealthy principal-agent relationships prevalent in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), these enterprises often lack transparency in financial reporting and other critical information. Drawing on signaling theory, this study examines the impact of mixed-ownership reform (MOR) on financial constraints in Chinese SOEs. Using data from listed manufacturing SOEs between 2009 and 2019, we find that every 0.1 increase in the proportion of non-state shareholders, a proxy for MOR intensity, is associated with an average 2.34 ‰ reduction in financial constraints. This mitigation in constraints primarily arises from decreased information asymmetry between enterprises and the external capital market. Specifically, MOR promotes corporate information disclosure, which sends quality signals to investors, while simultaneously reinforcing corporate governance, which projects intention signals to capital markets. Notably, the effectiveness of MOR in alleviating financial constraints is more significant in capital-intensive and information-sensitive industries, as well as in central SOEs. These findings not only highlight the critical role of MOR in alleviating information asymmetry within SOEs, but also provide valuable insights for similar reforms aimed at advancing sustainable development of SOEs in other countries.

During China’s industrial transformation, studying risk spillover effects and clarifying risk contagion pathways within the new energy industry chain is critical for promoting high-quality development in the new energy. The risk transmission mechanism of the new energy industry chain is explored by constructing a time–frequency index using a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model in this paper. Additionally, we also further analyze the portfolio and hedging effectiveness of the new energy market. The findings reveal that, first, the downstream market serves as the primary risk source, propagating risk through the industry chain to the midstream and upstream sectors within the new energy industry chain contagion system. Second, the risk spillover effect of the new energy market has significant heterogeneity and time-varying due to the impact of short-term frequency domain drivers and extreme events. Third, the portfolio significantly reduces the investment risk of a single asset. With the extension of the investment horizon, investors’ portfolio weights in the upstream, midstream and downstream industries gradually tend to be even.

The development of technology has led to the widespread use of digital technology in tax enforcement. Using the Chinese digital tax enforcement reform as a quasi-natural experiment, this study shows that digital tax enforcement reduces the risk of debt default by improving accounting information quality and reducing agency costs. Further analysis shows that this impact is more significant in enterprises with poorer external information environments, lower internal control quality, lower customer concentration, and lower digitalization levels. This study enriches the research on the economic consequences of digital tax enforcement. This has practical implications for the government when using information technology to strengthen tax administration.

Green mergers and acquisitions (GM&A) are pivotal for attaining green competitive advantages and fostering sustainable development. This study exploits data from Chinese publicly traded companies spanning 2010–2021 to examine the impact of GM&A on corporate environmental responsibility (CER). Utilizing a difference-in-differences design, the results document that GM&A significantly enhances firms' environmental responsibility. This conclusion remains robust after a comprehensive set of checks. GM&A spurs green technology innovation, eases financial constraints, and elevates corporate environmental awareness, thus mitigating environmental pollution. Additionally, the positive impact of GM&A on CER is particularly pronounced in regions with high market liberalization and firms with substantial social capital. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers crafting GM&A policies to raise environmental quality and contribute to the literature on the relationship between GM&A and CER.

Green development is the inevitable requirement of high-quality development in the resource-based regions, and it is also the fundamental guarantee for realizing environmental sustainability in the resource-based regions. Based on the panel data of 242 cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this paper explores whether mineral resource abundance is a blessing or a curse for carbon emission intensity and whether fiscal policy plays an intermediary role. We draw the following conclusions: (1) The overall performance of mineral resources is a carbon curse effect, because the carbon curse effect of mineral resources is greater than the carbon blessing effect. (2) Mechanism analysis reveals that the decrease in fiscal pressure and the increase in fiscal dependence are the formation paths of carbon blessing and carbon curse, respectively. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the occurrence and intensity of the carbon curse are related to the level of local foreign investment, government intervention, and industrial diversification. The research results explain the supplementary motivation of government quality and provide Chinese evidence for the transformation and upgrading of resource-based regions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a significant role in realizing sustainable economic development. This paper uses the textual content of annual reports of listed companies to count 73 words frequencies related to AI and construct AI indicators through precise vocabulary. It also examines how AI affects environment, social, and governance (ESG) performance at the firm level using unbalanced panel data of Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2022. The results indicate that the development of artificial intelligence has significantly improved the ESG performance of Chinese listed companies, and the conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. As a moderating variable, macroeconomic policy uncertainty reinforces the positive impact of AI on ESG performance. In terms of the impact mechanism, AI enhances firms’ ESG performance by increasing firms’ total factor productivity and R&D expenditures. The results of heterogeneity analysis show that AI has a significant positive impact on the ESG performance of non-state-owned firms, firms with executives without overseas backgrounds, and technology and capital-intensive firms. Compared with the western region, AI in the eastern and central regions has a more significant improvement effect on ESG performance. Our study deepens the knowledge and understanding of the role played by AI in the green development process at the micro level. It provides valuable suggestions and reflections for promoting AI development at the micro-enterprise level.

The registration-based initial public offering (IPO) system is a pivotal initiative in China’s comprehensive capital market reform, but little is known about its effectiveness. Our study aims to explore the impact of the registration-based IPO reform on enterprises’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) greenwashing behaviors. Drawing on data from 2,490 enterprises listed on the Chinese growth enterprise market and the main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange during 2012-2022, we find that the registration-based IPO reform significantly aggravates ESG greenwashing with an effect of 0.1696. Building upon this evidence, we explore the underlying mechanism. Peer competition and retail investor sentiment play a partial mediating role and become two channels through which the registration-based IPO reform may aggravate enterprises’ ESG greenwashing. Analysts’ attention can alleviate the impact of registration-based IPO reform on enterprises’ ESG greenwashing while management myopia intensifies it, and they both play a moderating role. Moreover, the aggravating effect of the registration-based IPO reform on ESG greenwashing is more pronounced in enterprises belonging to heavily polluting industries, in the Western region, and with low information transparency. Thus, our findings offer new insights into enterprises’ ESG greenwashing behaviors in the context of the registration-based IPO reform.