Political Hierarchy of Opening-Up Policy and China’s Carbon Reduction: Empirical Research Based on Spatial Regression Discontinuity

Nan Zhang and Yan Zhuang ()
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Nan Zhang: School of Financial and Trade, Faculty of Economics, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110136, China
Yan Zhuang: The Business School, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh EH14 1DJ, UK

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-24

Abstract: This paper constructs a counterfactual framework based on the opening-up policies of provinces in the eastern coastal region. It analyzes the role of the political hierarchy of the opening-up policy in China’s carbon reduction at the county level by using Spatial Regression Discontinuity, and the data used are from 1997 to 2017. The study found the following: (1) The improvement of the political hierarchy of the opening-up policy is negatively related to the carbon reduction, which has significantly boosted the carbon emission of counties in the eastern coastal areas of China. (2) The impact on border counties is more significant, and there is an obvious boundary effect. In terms of net carbon emissions, the political-hierarchy difference has a significant impact only in the area adjacent to the border. (3) There is strong heterogeneity among provinces, showing the boundary jump effect and boundary depression effect. (4) The political-hierarchy differences are significantly related to the regional carbon reduction by changing policy intensity, resulting in fiscal subsidies effects and gradient transfer effects. The location selection for the implementation of the opening-up policy significantly impacted the carbon reductions.

Keywords: political hierarchy; opening-up policy; carbon emission; spatial regression discontinuity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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