The spatiotemporal effects of environmental regulation on green innovation: Evidence from Chinese cities

The impact of market-incentive environmental regulation policies on corporate environmental costs: Evidence from China's carbon trading policy

As the world's largest emitter of carbon, China has implemented a series of environmental regulatory policies to reduce emissions. However, most of these environmental regulations have been at the expense of increased corporate environmental costs. Therefore, research on how to efficiently control these costs is of significant practical importance. This paper uses the China's carbon trading policy (CTP) implemented in 2013 as a quasi-natural experiment, utilizing data from Chinese listed manufacturing firms between 2008 and 2020. Employing a difference-in-differences (DID) model, the study investigates the impact of market-incentive environmental regulatory policies (ERP) on environmental costs. The findings reveal that CTP significantly reduced the environmental costs of firms, confirming the positive and vital role market-incentive ERP can play in environmental protection and cost control. These conclusions remain robust after a series of stability tests. Mechanism analysis suggests that the cost reductions brought by market-incentive ERP are primarily achieved through increasing green innovation. Heterogeneity analysis shows that non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), key polluting firms, firms with lower financial constraints, and firms with lower total production efficiency benefit more from market-incentive environmental regulatory policies. This study provides new empirical evidence for government policy-making aimed at achieving long-term sustainable development.

Development of a Multifaceted Perspective for Systematic Analysis, Assessment, and Performance for Environmental Standards of Contaminated Sites

Contaminated soil and groundwater can pose significant risks to human health and ecological environments, making the remediation of contaminated sites a pressing and sustained challenge. It is significant to identify key performance indicators and advance environmental management standards of contaminated sites. The traditional study currently focuses on the inflexible collection of related files and displays configurable limitations regarding integrated assessment and in-depth analysis of published standards. In addition, there is a relative lack of research focusing on the analysis of different types of standard documents. Herein, we introduce a cross-systematic retrospective and review for the development of standards of the contaminated sites, including the comprehensive framework, multifaceted analysis, and improved suggestion of soil and groundwater standards related to the environment. The classification and structural characteristics of different types of files are systematically analyzed of over 300 national, trade, local, and group standards for the contaminated sites. It exhibits that trade standards are the main types and testing methods are the important format within numerical considerations of soil standards. The guide standard serves as a crucial component in environmental management for investigating, assessing, and remediating of contaminated sites. Future improvement plans and development directions are proposed for advancing robust technical support for effective soil contamination prevention and control. This multidimensional analysis and the accompanying suggestions can provide improved guidance for Chinese environmental management of contaminated sites and sparkle the application of standards in a wide range of countries.

Carbon reduction behavior of waste power battery recycling enterprises considering learning effects

The carbon reduction behavior of waste power battery recycling (WPBR) enterprises is essential for promoting resource conservation and environmental protection. Introducing the learning effects of carbon reduction research and development (R&D) investment, this study constructs an evolutionary game model between local governments and WPBR enterprises to study the behavior choice of carbon reduction. The paper explores the evolutionary process and factors affecting carbon reduction behavior choices of WPBR enterprises from internal R&D motivation and external regulation perspectives. The critical results reveal that the existence of learning effects significantly reduces the probability of environmental regulation by local governments while effectively increasing the probability of WPBR enterprises implementing carbon reduction. The learning rate index positively correlates with the likelihood of enterprises implementing carbon emissions reduction. In addition, carbon reduction subsidies considerably maintain considerably negative relation with the probability of enterprise carbon reduction behavior. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The learning effect of carbon reduction R&D investment is the intrinsic driving force for WPBR enterprises' carbon reduction behavior, which can promote enterprises to proactively implement carbon reduction under fewer constraints of government environmental regulation; (2) Pollution fines and carbon trade prices in environmental regulation can promote enterprises carbon reduction, while carbon reduction subsidies inhibit their reduction behavior; (3) There exists an evolutionarily stable strategy between government-enterprise game only under the dynamic mechanism. The research provides insights for decision-making on enterprises' carbon reduction R&D investment and local government environmental regulation policy under carbon reduction targets.

The impact of Water Ecological Civilization City Pilot on urban green innovation: the case of China

As an essential part of ecological civilization, water ecological civilization has significant influence on the green and sustainable development of cities. Under the background of China's Water Ecological Civilization City Pilot (WECCP), based on data from 275 cities in China from 2007 to 2019 by using the difference-in-differences (DID) model, we empirically analyzed the influence of the WECCP establishment on urban green innovation and explored the impact mechanism in depth using a mediating effect model, which aimed to verify whether the "Porter hypothesis" holds true in China. The result indicated that the WECCP had made a remarkable contribution to enhancing urban green innovation in the pilot cities. Further research found that the input mechanism played an important mediating role. In addition, the heterogeneity test indicated that cities in the central region, at low administrative levels, and in the first batch of pilots gained more from the policy establishment. This paper has theoretical implications for understanding the derived innovation benefits of the environmental policy, practical implications for identifying new drivers of urban innovation, and provides related experience for the country to further promote and expand water ecological civilization construction and useful policy inspiration for other developing countries to formulate ecological and environmental policies.