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Revealing the political decision toward Chinese carbon abatement: Based on equity and efficiency criteria

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  • Ni, Jinlan
  • Wei, Chu
  • Du, Limin

Abstract

China's economic reform over the past 30years has allowed the free market to drive economic development. However, government still plays a key role in the energy sector by allocating energy conservation and emissions abatement. How does the government make an equity decision as a tradeoff to market efficiency? This is an unanswered question. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the government's preference toward equity and efficiency. Using the provincial level CO2 intensity allocation data, we investigate the political decision that the government made based on the equity and efficiency criteria. We find that the equity index plays a more important role than the efficiency index in determining the CO2 intensity target. In addition, political factors such as social stability are found to be important factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Ni, Jinlan & Wei, Chu & Du, Limin, 2015. "Revealing the political decision toward Chinese carbon abatement: Based on equity and efficiency criteria," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 609-621.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:51:y:2015:i:c:p:609-621
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2015.08.027
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    Cited by:

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    China; Equity; Efficiency; Preference; Policy-maker;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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