No abstract

This paper evaluates the effects of China's industrial SO2 emissions trading pilot scheme (SETPS) on the pollution abatement costs (PAC) from the past and future perspective. We apply the kernel-based propensity score difference-in-difference method to examine the effects of SETPS on the average pollution abatement costs (APAC) and the marginal pollution abatement costs (MPAC) based on the environment data from the industrial sector of 29 provinces in China over the period of 1998 to 2011. Our findings are that SETPS failed to reduce PAC as a whole. During 2002 to 2011, SETPS increased APAC by 1310 RMB per ton on average and had an insignificant negative effect on MPAC. Nevertheless, the conclusions would be markedly different if we separately investigated the effects of SETPS each year of the pilot period. The positive effects of SETPS on PAC started to appear since 2009, and SETPS significantly reduced both APAC and MPAC, especially in 2009 and 2011.

Carbon dioxide is believed widely to be the major contributor to global warming. Policymakers worldwide are turning to tax policies in an effort to abate carbon emissions. China is the largest emitter of carbon emissions on our planet. The central government, as well as the local official, has introduced a series of environmental regulations, such as environmental protection tax and emissions trading system, to reduce carbon emissions and improve environmental quality. In the near future, the carbon emission tax is also expected to be implemented by the Chinese government. In order to analyze and predict the effect of the carbon emission tax on environmental and economic systems, we developed a four department dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, which includes households, enterprises, the government, and the environment. The dynamic parameters were obtained using maximum likelihood estimation. In the comparative static-s analysis, we found that after the introduction of carbon emission tax, the level in environmental quality was substantially improved, whereas most economic variables were significantly reduced. Moreover, we used impulse responses functions to evaluate how one shock to the carbon emission tax affects the steady static values for these endogenous variables in our model. We found that the carbon emission tax shock has an instantaneous effect on the majority of economic variables, but it does not affect the environmental quality immediately. In addition, we tested the Porter hypothesis and found no evidence suggesting the statement regarding this hypothesis. Finally, we applied Bayesian estimation to assure our findings in this study, again.

Estimating the impact of environmental taxes on economic output is of great theoretical value for promoting green growth in China. Using a dataset of 232 cities from 2004 to 2014, this paper investigates the effect of pollution levy standards reform (PSR) on green total factor productivity (GTFP). We employ directional distance functions (DDF) computed by data envelopment analysis (DEA) to derive GTFP based on the Malmquist–Luenberger (ML) productivity index. Then, we investigate the impacts of PSR on China’s GTFP using Difference-in-Differences (DID) estimation. The results reveal that PSR has an inhibitory effect on GTFP, via the mechanism of technological change. Furthermore, PSR has heterogeneous impacts on different city types. The results indicate that PSR statistically significantly reduces GTFP in key environmental protection cities (KEPCs), large cities, and eastern cities, but that it has less impact on non-KEPCs, small/medium cities, megacities, and cities in central areas.

Abstract:The paper is purposively designed to study the linkages between organizational factors, including liquidity, leverage, asset utilization, market share position and firm size on financial performance in service firms. In assessing the linkages, the study recruits return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as dependent variables to assess financial performance derived from the existence of the stated organizational factors. The aspect of financial performance in service firms is an important one as it reflects the effectiveness of the management. Additionally, the growth of productivity in service firms is traditionally low compared to the manufacturing firms; hence, the organization of factors in manufacturing firms has been quite documented in the literature to be linked with financial performance. This provokes the question of whether management practices and organizational factors that have enhanced financial performance in manufacturing firms can also be accounted for the service firms. The financial performance of the company is essential to measure management as the individuals and groups within the organization that contributes towards the financial objectives of the company. The proposed research framework can be of practical value for the firms. Managers can benefit from the outcomes of the paper by having a clear picture of organizational factors and conducting necessary research in order to find out the true nature of these factors.