Sustainable development goals and firm carbon emissions: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Xiaoguang Liu, Qiang Ji and Jian Yu

Energy Economics, 2021, vol. 103, issue C

Abstract: Using a difference-in-differences approach, this paper investigates the impact of changes in China's sustainable economic development goals on the energy conservation and emissions reductions behavior of Chinese firms. On average, incorporating emissions reduction targets into the long-term development plans produced significant effects in terms of energy conservation and emissions reduction, reducing energy consumption intensity between 2008 and 2011 by 1.39% and carbon emission intensity by 2.37%. The effects were mainly achieved through two long-term mechanisms, namely, optimizing energy consumption structure and increasing investment in green technologies. Both reflect firms' preference to take long-term measures rather than temporary ones. We also found that non-state-owned firms, firms without government financial subsidies, and firms with high external financing dependence, put more effort into reducing their carbon emissions in order to comply with the adjusted goals.

Keywords: Sustainable economic development goal; Five-year plan; Energy intensity; Carbon emission reduction; Energy transition; Difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C2 L2 Q4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988321004916
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s0140988321004916

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105627

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant

More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().