How does national green influence affect national environmental performance? Evidence from nations' practices in signing environmental provisions

This study evaluates nations’ rankings and international influences in global environmental governance - termed National Green Influence (NGI) - based on nations’ practices in signing environmental provisions within Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Leveraging comprehensive signing data from FTAs across 209 countries and regions from 1990 to 2021, we employ network analysis to quantify the NGI index for each nation; a higher NGI indicates that a nation wields greater influence and demonstrates stronger leadership in nations’ environmental provisions signing practice. This paper further investigates the impact of NGI on National Environmental Performance (NEP). Empirical results demonstrate that nations with higher NGI exhibit better NEP. The robustness of this finding is confirmed through instrumental variable regression using linguistic commonality and the interaction term of global average temperature. Mechanism analysis reveals that NGI enhances NEP through three primary channels: technological spillover effects, economies of scale effects and structural adjustment effects. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the improvement effects are more pronounced in nations that are resource-scarce, capital-abundant, and those with stronger institutional capacity and higher trade openness. These effects, however, diminish when trade networks face negative international trade shocks. This study substantiates the beneficial role of NGI in promoting NEP, contributes to the theoretical development of international relations in global environmental governance, and highlights the importance of international governance in promoting global green development.