The low-carbon city pilot policy is an environmental regulation aimed at reducing carbon emissions at the municipal level. Previous research mostly focused on evaluating its environmental performance and discovered it could enhance pilot cities’ low-carbon innovation. However, the effects of the low-carbon city pilot policy on firm-level low-carbon innovation and their economic impact have yet to be investigated. This research uses a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms and the difference-in-difference method to examine the effect of the low-carbon city pilot policy on firms’ low-carbon innovation. The baseline regression showed that the low-carbon city pilot policy could greatly encourage low-carbon innovation among firms in pilot cities. The mechanism analysis demonstrated that this improvement effect is attained by easing these firms’ financing constraints. According to the heterogeneity analysis, we discovered that state-owned firms and firms situated in pilot zones with municipal secretaries who have larger promotion incentives are more susceptible to this policy. Additionally, the research on this policy’s economic impact revealed that, following its adoption, the market value and comparative advantages of the firms in the pilot areas also increased. The findings of this study have implications for the enhancement and national expansion of low-carbon policies adopted at the city level.

The green credit policy is a crucial tool that the Chinese government adopted to tackle environmental problems by combining environmental regulation and credit policy. This study takes the Green Credit Guidelines (GCG) issued in 2012 as a quasi-natural experiment to examine its impact on the export quality of firms. Using data covering Chinese A-share listed firms and the difference-in-difference (DID) method, the empirical research shows that the GCG significantly enhanced the export quality of heavily polluting firms. The mediation analyses indicate that green innovation plays an intermediate role in enhancing the export quality of firms. The heterogeneity analysis of firm characteristics demonstrates that the improvement effect brought by the GCG is significantly reflected in state-owned firms and firms in financially underdeveloped areas. The research results provide implications for firms on how to deal with the green credit policy. In addition, it also serves as an essential reference for developing economies on the successful implementation of market-based environmental regulations.

This note reviews the indexes used in academic studies and official reports to quantify energy security levels. With the enrichment of energy security connotation, the dimension and organization of such indexes have undergone changes, such as the index becoming much more complex and the indicators considering more environmental, technological, and social issues. Though official reports have preferred projections more than journal papers, projections are still not a main focus of the energy security index.