Does an Emissions Trading Policy Improve Environmental Efficiency? Evidence from China

Assessing the role of financial inclusion and financial development to improve energy and environmental efficiency

Environmental concerns are increasingly assuming prominence across the globe. Undesirable output such as carbon dioxide is the end-product of desirable productivity in energy and environmental measurement. Therefore, the current study uses data envelopment analysis to measure the energy and environmental efficiency of developed and developing countries from 2001 to 2020. In order to incentivize environmentally benign generation, undesirable outputs ought to be coupled in the evaluation of the performance of countries. One of the widely acclaimed approaches for evaluating efficiency is the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Within this analysis, the traditional modeling in data envelopment analysis is expanded to incorporate a novel framework for efficiency evaluation amongst undesirable outputs. The novel efficiency estimate is extra robust, plus gives more extraordinary differentiating ability. The findings highlighted that the environmental efficiency was essentially minimal, whiles their spatial attributes increased in the East and decreased in the West, beyond more significant in the South as well as lower in the North. The findings equally show that Iceland obtained a perfect efficiency score of one for energy and environmental efficiency owing greatly to its reliance on geothermal energy which is emission-free energy. The finding is in line with the reality that the twofold data envelopment analysis model compares DMUo with the entire decision-making units in the technology, plus not only with empirical decision-making units.

Revisiting SDG-7 under energy efficiency vision 2050: the role of new economic models and mass digitalization in OECD

Policies on reducing energy demand should incorporate the newly formed economic models, digitalization, and consumer awareness trends. Therefore, this study analyzes the interaction of the three trends with SDG7 under energy efficiency vision 2050, measuring the energy efficiency of OECD from 2005 to 2017 to enable this inclusion. In this context, four new trends expected to shape future energy demand are identified through extensive consultation with experts from South Asian countries by developing future power demand for the year of 2050. Consequently, the results show a crucial impact of such trends on a future power demand that exceeds the economic potential of techno. Hence, the best-case scenario, "New Trends Efficient," reduces final energy demand by 78% compared to the South Asian "Baseline" scenario in 2050, whereas the "Worst Case" scenario increases final energy demand by 35%. Therefore, Austria and Korea have the highest energy efficiency score of 0.76 and 0.75, whereas Canada and Chile have the lowest energy efficiency score of 0.41 and 0.42. This paper discusses the ability of digitalization and energy consumer awareness trends in shaping the future energy demand based on SDG 7, emphasizing the importance of energy efficiency vision 2050 in policymaking for effective acquisition.

Evaluation of the Policy Effect of China's Environmental Interview System for Effective Air Quality Governance

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China formally proposed an environmental interview system in May 2014, which applies pressure on local governments to fulfill their responsibility toward environmental protection by conducting face-to-face public interviews with their officials. In this paper, 48 cities that were publicly interviewed from 2014-2020 were considered the experimental group and 48 cities surrounding them were the control group. First, the dynamic panel model is applied to initially determine the effect of the policy. Then, a regression discontinuity method (Sharp RD) is used to analyze the short-term and long-term effects and compare the reasons for the differences observed among the estimates of various types of samples. Finally, a series of robustness tests were also conducted. The results show that the environmental interview system can improve air quality. However, because an emergency short-term local governance system exists at present, the governance effect is not long-term and, therefore, not sustainable. Therefore, it suggests that the government should continue to improve the environmental interview system, establish an optimal environmental protection incentive mechanism, and encourage local governments to implement environmental protection policies effectively in the long term. The results of the research are of great significance to the environmental impact assessment system of the world, especially in countries with similar economic systems, which are facing a trade-off between economic growth and environmental sustainability.

Time-frequency Connectedness between Coal Market Prices, New Energy Stock Prices and CO2 Emissions Trading Prices in China

This paper aims to examine whether there is inherent dynamic connectedness among coal market prices, new energy stock prices and carbon emission trading (CET) prices in China under time- and frequency-varying perspectives. For this purpose, we apply a novel wavelet method proposed by Aguiar-Conraria et al. (2018). Specifically, utilizing the single wavelet power spectrum, the multiple wavelet coherency, the partial wavelet coherency, also combined with the partial phase difference and the partial wavelet gains, this paper discovers the time-frequency interaction between three markets. The empirical results show that the connectedness between the CET market price and the coal price is frequency-varying and mainly occur in the lower and higher frequency bands, while the connectedness between the CET market price and the new energy stock price mainly happen in the middle and lower frequency bands. In the high-frequency domain, the CET market price is mainly affected by the coal price, while the CET market price is dominated by the new energy stock price in the middle frequency. These uncovered frequency-varying characteristics among these markets in this study could provide several implications. Main participants in these markets, such as polluting industries, governments and financial actors, should pay close attention to the connectedness under different frequencies, in order to realize their goal of the production, the policymaking, and the investment.