Spatio-temporal efficiency of fiscal environmental expenditure in reducing CO2 emissions in China's cities

Agricultural carbon reduction in China: The synergy effect of trade and technology on sustainable development

The control of carbon emissions from agriculture is imperative in addressing the challenges posed by the greenhouse effect. China must develop a specific pathway for reducing its agricultural carbon emissions, accounting for its unique circumstances and considering the impacts of trade liberalization. (1) The study revealing that agricultural trade liberalization (ATL) has a marked effect on lowering China's agricultural carbon emission intensity (ACEI), with robustness and endogeneity tests supporting these findings. (2) In the pursuit of emissions reduction, the crucial role of technology spillovers (TS) and the optimization of industrial structure (OIS) are essential. (3) The reduction in ACEI is particularly notable in coastal regions, areas with low environmental regulations and during periods characterized by more stable agricultural tariffs. This study shows a synergistic association between ATL and ACEI, indicates the potential for a mutually beneficial situation with advantages in both economic and environmental aspects.

The impact of fiscal transfer payments on energy conservation and emission reduction in China: Does the development stage matter?

Fiscal transfer payments (TRANS) are the institutional supplement of Chinese-style fiscal decentralization, which is of great significance to economic development. However, the relationship between TRANS and energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER) remains to be further discussed. Using panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2020, this study empirically examines the impact of TRANS on energy-environmental performance (EEP) from the perspectives of influence mechanism, regional heterogeneity and nonlinearity. The results show that the influence of TRANS on ECER presents an obvious U-shaped relationship, and this influence has regional heterogeneity. At the same time, the investment-driven effect, infrastructure effect and industrial structure effect are important channels through which TRANS affect ECER. The partially linear functional coefficient models show that TRANS have different effects in different development stages. With the continuous improvement of economic level and urbanization level, the promotion effect of TRANS on ECER is more and more obvious. These results indicate that the government should increase fiscal investment in ECER, and pay attention to the development stage of different regions.

The Effects of Environmental Tax Revenue on Sustainable Development in China

Despite extensive studies focused on environmental tax revenue (ETR) on the driver and linkage with socioeconomic variables over time, an in-depth investigation on the spatiotemporal driver and intrinsic characteristics (e.g., convergence and complex network) is in need, providing valuable information on formulating better environmental tax policy towards sustainable development. Therefore, the study comprehensively analyzed the spatiotemporal driver, convergence trend, and complex network of provincial ETR in a case of China over 2000-2019 by using temporal and spatial logarithmic mean Divisia index models (LMDI), convergence models, and social network analysis, respectively. We found that, first, two convergence clubs of ETR for China's provinces over the period were found. Second, GDP per capita and tax intensity were the positive and negative drivers contributing the increase in ETR. Third, within differences in tax intensity and GDP per capita, as well as the differences in population and GDP per capita, were the main drivers widening the overall ETR gap. Fourth, the original hierarchical ETR spatial correlation structure has changed, while provinces exhibited certain degrees of heterogeneity in terms of ETR spatial association network. The study highlights that ETR plays a significant role in maintaining sustainable development and thus suggests that more importance of environmental tax policies at various levels should be attached.