1. Environmental regulation and the growth of the total-factor carbon productivity of China's industries: Evidence from the implementation of action plan of air pollution prevention and control.
- Author
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Zhou, Lin and Tang, Lizhi
- Subjects
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AIR pollution prevention , *AIR pollution control , *REGULATION of growth , *ENVIRONMENTAL regulations , *AIR pollution , *CARBON - Abstract
To abate the severe air pollution, the Chinese government released the Action Plan of Air Pollution Prevention and Control (APAPPC) in 2013. This paper regards the APAPPC as a quasi-experiment and uses the DID method to investigate the impact of environmental regulation on the growth of green total-factor productivity of China's industries. This article employs the non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) and the global Malmquist index to measure the total-factor carbon productivity of China's industries. Further regressions suggest that the implementation of the APAPPC has significantly promoted the growth of the total-factor carbon productivity in the air pollution-intensive industries, and its marginal effect has steadily increased with time. This result is still valid after using a series of counterfactual tests and robustness tests. The further mechanism study shows that the APAPPC has significantly promoted R&D investment, especially in instruments and equipment, which has effectively promoted technical efficiency and technological advancement. It indicates that stringent and well-designed environmental regulations should lead to a "win-win" situation of environmental improvement and economic development by encouraging enterprises to upgrade their technology and equipment. • This paper uses a typical case in China to demonstrate the porter's hypothesis. • This paper uses the DEA method to measure the total-factor carbon productivity of China's industries. • The Action Plan of Air Pollution Prevention and Control in China has significantly promoted the growth of total-factor carbon productivity. • The regulation promotes productivity by propelling enterprises to increase R&D investment and update their technical equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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