Impact of energy saving on the financial performance of industrial enterprises in China: An empirical analysis based on propensity score matching

Impact of local government environmental attention on corporate total factor productivity: Evidence from 288 Chinese cities

To improve the effectiveness of government environmental attention on resource allocation, this study proposes a measurement framework using text analysis and an unsupervised Word2vec model to quantify local government environmental attention of 288 Chinese cities. We further examine its impact on total factor productivity (TFP) of China's listed firms from 2010 to 2021 using the high-dimensional fixed-effects and panel quantile regression models. The findings show that: (1) Local government environmental attention contributes positively to TFP, with each unit increase raising TFP by approximately 1.4% from its mean. The results remain robust across various endogeneity and robustness tests. (2) As corporate TFP improves, the marginal positive impact of local government environmental attention gradually strengthens, with command-and-control-oriented and guidance-oriented attention generating greater positive impact than target-oriented attention. (3) Regarding influence mechanisms, local government environmental attention improves corporate TFP by enhancing green governance and innovation quality rather than increasing innovation quantity. Media monitoring enhances its positive impact on corporate TFP, particularly in firms with predominantly positive media coverage. These findings offer insights into facilitating corporate high-quality development.

Energy-saving targets and carbon neutrality: A perspective on carbon emissions and carbon substitution in 288 Chinese cities

Environmental protection is a shared task among nations. In pursuit of its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China has implemented more robust energy-saving targets. This study utilizes panel data from 288 Chinese cities spanning from 2006 to 2020 to examine the policy effects of energy-saving targets on carbon neutrality. The findings reveal that (1) energy-saving targets positively impact carbon substitution, resulting in reduced carbon emissions and facilitating the progress towards carbon neutrality through three primary channels: energy governance, energy production, and energy consumption. (2) The influence of energy-saving targets on carbon neutrality exhibits a significant spatial spillover effect, driven primarily by the reduction in carbon emissions, although the spatial spillover effect of carbon substitution is relatively limited. The collaboration between the government and enterprises plays a crucial role in achieving carbon neutrality, while the engagement of the general public is yet to be fully realized. (3) However, the inadequacy of enhancing carbon neutrality through energy-saving targets lies in the compulsory emissions reduction behavior at the expense of sacrificing some economic benefits in cities that overachieve energy-saving targets. This undermines the coordinated development of ecology and economy. Therefore, it is recommended to establish a policy implementation monitoring system to ensure the scientific basis of policy objectives, enhance the level of green technology innovation, accelerate the digital transformation of enterprises, and establish a synergistic mechanism that involves multiple stakeholders.

Environmental regulation and carbon emission efficiency: Evidence from pollution levy standards adjustment in China

China's economy experienced great growth, which also induces large carbon emission. Facing the target of "Carbon peak, Carbon neutrality" in China, it is vital to improve the carbon emission efficiency. Employing the spatial Difference-in-Differences model, this paper investigates the impact of environmental regulation on carbon emission efficiency with a quasi-natural experiment of Pollution Levy Standards Adjustment in China. Our empirical results show that the environmental regulation can significantly improve the carbon emission efficiency. moreover, two impact channels are explored: green innovation and industrial upgrading. More specifically, the green innovation increases with environmental regulation, and the increased green innovation improves carbon emission efficiency. The industry upgrading increases with environmental regulation, and the increased industry upgrading improves carbon emission efficiency. Finally, in terms of city heterogeneity, we find that the impact of environmental regulation will be more pronounced for larger cities and resource-based cities. Our findings suggest that the environmental regulation must be enhanced for both smaller cities and non-resource-based cities. Moreover, to promote the green innovation of firms, since green innovation is risky and costly, governments should provide more subsidies or grants on corporate green technologies, thus firms will be motivated to invest in green technologies to reduce carbon emission.

From clicks to change: The role of Internet use in fostering environmental sustainability awareness

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Internet use affects an individual's environmental sustainability awareness. To this end, we adopt data from the 2021 wave of Chinese General Social Survey, measure the environmental sustainability awareness by 14 categories of items, and employ a treatment effect model to identify the relationship. The results reveal that Internet use is significantly associated with an increase in people's environmental sustainability awareness. Our study sheds light on the underlying mechanism of the positive correlation via an information-based channel. Furthermore, we also find that the facilitating effect is more pronounced in economically developed regions. This work provides a new insight into the determinants of environmental sustainability awareness and offers several implications to conduct sustainable development policies in the digital era.

Optimizing aeration intensity to enhance self-flocculation in algal-bacterial symbiosis systems

Effectuating optimal wastewater treatment via algae-bacterial symbiosis (ABS) systems necessitates the precise selection of aeration intensity. This study pioneers an in-depth investigation into the interplay of aeration intensity on the microalgal-bacterial consortia's self-flocculation efficacy and the overall treatment performance within ABS systems. The research provides evidence for a direct association between aeration intensity and biomass proliferation, indicating enhanced pollutant removal efficiency with escalated intensities (1.0 and 1.5 L min-1), though the variance lacks statistical significance. The peak self-flocculation efficacy of the microalgal-bacterial consortium (82.39% at 30 min) was manifested at an aeration intensity of 1.0 L min-1. The meticulous analysis of biomass properties showed the complexity of self-flocculation capacity in the consortium, which involves a dynamic interplay of several pivotal factors, including floc size, zeta potential, and EPS content. In situations where these factors pose conflicting influences, the determining factor emerges as the dominant influencer. In this study, the optimal aeration intensity was identified as 1 L min-1, shedding light on the critical threshold for ABS system operation. This study not only enriches the understanding of microalgal-bacterial wastewater treatment mechanisms but also fosters innovative strategies to enhance the performance of such systems.

Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed household food management and food waste behavior? A natural experiment using propensity score matching

Household food management behavior changed considerably during the COVID-19 pandemic. A growing body of work has quantified the impact of lockdowns on household food waste. Yet, previous studies used a retrospective study design which undermines the accuracy of the causal effect on household food waste. This paper investigates the causal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on household food management and food waste using a natural experiment approach. Using two large national-scale longitudinal data sets (n = 8157), this study quantifies the impact of COVID-19 on food waste and food behavior of Australian households. Propensity score matching (PSM) was carried out to address potential endogeneity issues and to select control and treatment groups for analysis. Findings reveal that Australian households reduced food waste by 9% on average in 2020 (during COVID-19) compared to the pre-pandemic (2019) level. The use of a grocery list, discount purchases, and 'just-in-case' purchases, and food refrigeration have recorded a marked increase during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times. The changes to food management and food discard behavior during the pandemic offer important insights for behavior change campaigns to reduce household food waste. Interventions to sustain good food planning and storage practices and involving food retailers are promising entry points in addressing household food waste. The study also highlights the considerable challenge in achieving SDG 12.3 target by 2030.

Analysis of the suitability of the solar panels for hospitals: A new fuzzy decision-making model proposal with the T-Spherical TOP-DEMATEL method

In this study, a new fuzzy decision-making model is created to evaluate whether the solar panels are efficient to minimize energy costs of the hospitals. The weights of the criteria are calculated by considering T-Spherical fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method. Moreover, for the purpose of measuring the coherency of the findings, analysis results are also calculated for different t values. Additionally, by making improvements to some criticisms to the classical DEMATEL method, a new technique is created by the name of TOP-DEMATEL while integrating some steps of technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to the DEMATEL technique. The main novelty of this study is that it is analyzed whether the solar panels are effective in reducing the costs of hospitals with an original decision-making model. It is concluded that generating own energy in the long run is the most crucial item according to both T-Spherical fuzzy DEMATEL and TOP-DEMATEL methods. The analysis results are quite similar for different t values. This situation gives information about the coherency and reliability of the findings. This situation gives information that the solar panels should be taken into consideration for the hospitals because they will minimize energy dependency of the hospitals. On the other side, the results of T-Spherical fuzzy TOP-DEMATEL indicate that the high initial investment cost is the second most critical factor in this respect. This finding is quite different by comparing with the results of T-Spherical fuzzy TOP-DEMATEL. Hence, it is seen that cost effectiveness should also be taken into consideration for the decision of generating the solar panels in the hospitals.

Like the new and hate the old: The impact of fiscal decentralization on regional development strategy

This paper evaluates the impact of China’s fiscal decentralization reform, namely the “Province-Managing-County” (PMC) fiscal reform, on local governments’ regional development strategy using county-level data in China covering 2000 to 2013. Surprisingly, after implementing the PMC fiscal reform, local governments will adjust their strategy of supporting zombie firms and attracting new firms, indicating that fiscal decentralization has changed the regional development strategies of local governments. We perform a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis and find that the PMC fiscal reform materially induces an average rise of 0.131 in newly added firms, an average decline of 0.383 in zombie firms, and no significant change in other firms. There is a pronounced substitution effect between zombie firms and newly added firms. We also find evidence supporting this argument: the government’s subsidy, tax treatment, and financial support. Our study provides empirical evidence that local governments’ regional development strategies can be affected by fiscal decentralization.