IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i3p831-d314058.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial Leverage, Economic Growth and Environmental Degradation: Evidence from 30 Provinces in China

Author

Listed:
  • Miyun Zhao

    (School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China)

  • Rui Yang

    (Department of Science and Technology, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China)

  • Yi Li

    (School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China)

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate the endogenous relationship between financial leverage, economic growth and environmental degradation in China by employing a the generalized moments method (GMM) panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) approach with a panel of data from China’s 30 provinces over the period 1997–2016. Three key results arise. First, financial leverage can significantly lessen economic growth, while economic growth decreases financial leverage. Second, economic growth provides an important impetus to boost carbon emissions. Finally, carbon emissions have inversely pushed up financial leverage. These results reflect to some extent China’s impressive rate of economic growth, which has been attained via continuously supporting inefficient state-owned enterprises and heavy and polluting industries through bank loans. The results are further supported by the variance decomposition. The findings provide valuable policy implications for deepening financial supply-side structure reform to transform and upgrade China’s real economy. These policy implications are conductive to developing a low-carbon economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Miyun Zhao & Rui Yang & Yi Li, 2020. "Financial Leverage, Economic Growth and Environmental Degradation: Evidence from 30 Provinces in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-12, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:3:p:831-:d:314058
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/831/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/831/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brock, William A. & Taylor, M. Scott, 2005. "Economic Growth and the Environment: A Review of Theory and Empirics," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 28, pages 1749-1821, Elsevier.
    2. Jalil, Abdul & Feridun, Mete, 2011. "The impact of growth, energy and financial development on the environment in China: A cointegration analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 284-291, March.
    3. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Hoang, Thi Hong Van & Mahalik, Mantu Kumar & Roubaud, David, 2017. "Energy consumption, financial development and economic growth in India: New evidence from a nonlinear and asymmetric analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 199-212.
    4. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    5. Peter L. Rousseau & Paul Wachtel, 2011. "What Is Happening To The Impact Of Financial Deepening On Economic Growth?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(1), pages 276-288, January.
    6. Campiglio, Emanuele, 2016. "Beyond carbon pricing: The role of banking and monetary policy in financing the transition to a low-carbon economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 220-230.
    7. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Ahmad, Nawaz & Alam, Shaista, 2016. "Financial development and environmental quality: The way forward," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 353-364.
    8. Zhang, Xing-Ping & Cheng, Xiao-Mei, 2009. "Energy consumption, carbon emissions, and economic growth in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2706-2712, August.
    9. Jordan Shan, 2005. "Does financial development 'lead' economic growth? A vector auto-regression appraisal," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(12), pages 1353-1367.
    10. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    11. Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2012. "Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1029-1061, April.
    12. Grossman, G.M & Krueger, A.B., 1991. "Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement," Papers 158, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    13. Levine, Ross, 2005. "Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 865-934, Elsevier.
    14. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Newey, Whitney & Rosen, Harvey S, 1988. "Estimating Vector Autoregressions with Panel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1371-1395, November.
    15. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    16. Zhang, Yue-Jun, 2011. "The impact of financial development on carbon emissions: An empirical analysis in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 2197-2203, April.
    17. Love, Inessa & Zicchino, Lea, 2006. "Financial development and dynamic investment behavior: Evidence from panel VAR," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 190-210, May.
    18. Javid, Muhammad & Sharif, Fatima, 2016. "Environmental Kuznets curve and financial development in Pakistan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 406-414.
    19. Yaping He & Pengfei Sheng & Marek Vochozka, 2017. "Pollution caused by finance and the relative policy analysis in China," Energy & Environment, , vol. 28(7), pages 808-823, November.
    20. Tamazian, Artur & Chousa, Juan Piñeiro & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2009. "Does higher economic and financial development lead to environmental degradation: Evidence from BRIC countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 246-253, January.
    21. Sadorsky, Perry, 2010. "The impact of financial development on energy consumption in emerging economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 2528-2535, May.
    22. Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2013. "Does financial instability increase environmental degradation? Fresh evidence from Pakistan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 537-544.
    23. Ouyang, Yaofu & Li, Peng, 2018. "On the nexus of financial development, economic growth, and energy consumption in China: New perspective from a GMM panel VAR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 238-252.
    24. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Kumar Tiwari, Aviral & Nasir, Muhammad, 2013. "The effects of financial development, economic growth, coal consumption and trade openness on CO2 emissions in South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1452-1459.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hafiz Muhammad Abubakar Siddique & Areesha Aziz & Naima Shehzadi & Sumaira, 2022. "Financial Development, Exports, and Industrial Pollution: Evidence from Lower and Upper Middle-Income Countries," Journal of Policy Research (JPR), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 8(4), pages 335-343, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Acheampong, Alex O., 2019. "Modelling for insight: Does financial development improve environmental quality?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 156-179.
    2. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Nasir, Muhammad Ali & Roubaud, David, 2018. "Environmental degradation in France: The effects of FDI, financial development, and energy innovations," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 843-857.
    3. Ahmed Imran Hunjra & Tahar Tayachi & Muhammad Irfan Chani & Peter Verhoeven & Asad Mehmood, 2020. "The Moderating Effect of Institutional Quality on the Financial Development and Environmental Quality Nexus," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-13, May.
    4. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Wu, Yi-Chen & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2020. "Carbon dioxide emissions and the finance curse," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Yue, Shujing & Lu, Rou & Shen, Yongchang & Chen, Hongtao, 2019. "How does financial development affect energy consumption? Evidence from 21 transitional countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 253-262.
    6. Xu, Xin & Huang, Shupei & An, Haizhong & Vigne, Samuel & Lucey, Brian, 2021. "The influence pathways of financial development on environmental quality: New evidence from smooth transition regression models," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    7. Ouyang, Yaofu & Li, Peng, 2018. "On the nexus of financial development, economic growth, and energy consumption in China: New perspective from a GMM panel VAR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 238-252.
    8. Omri, Anis & Daly, Saida & Rault, Christophe & Chaibi, Anissa, 2015. "Financial development, environmental quality, trade and economic growth: What causes what in MENA countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 242-252.
    9. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain & Ahmad, Nawaz & Alam, Shaista, 2016. "Financial development and environmental quality: The way forward," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 353-364.
    10. Mumin Atalay Cetin & Ibrahim Bakirtas, 2020. "The long-run environmental impacts of economic growth, financial development, and energy consumption: Evidence from emerging markets," Energy & Environment, , vol. 31(4), pages 634-655, June.
    11. Iftikhar Yasin & Nawaz Ahmad & Muhammad Aslam Chaudhary, 2021. "The impact of financial development, political institutions, and urbanization on environmental degradation: evidence from 59 less-developed economies," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 6698-6721, May.
    12. Iftikhar Yasin & Nawaz Ahmad & M. Aslam Chaudhary, 2020. "Catechizing the Environmental-Impression of Urbanization, Financial Development, and Political Institutions: A Circumstance of Ecological Footprints in 110 Developed and Less-Developed Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 621-649, January.
    13. Magdalena Ziolo & Krzysztof Kluza & Anna Spoz, 2019. "Impact of Sustainable Financial and Economic Development on Greenhouse Gas Emission in the Developed and Converging Economies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-30, November.
    14. Xiang, Yitian & Cui, Haotian & Bi, Yunxiao, 2023. "The impact and channel effects of banking competition and government intervention on carbon emissions: Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    15. Muhammad Shahbaz & Mehmet Akif Destek & Michael L. Polemis, 2018. "Do Foreign Capital and Financial Development Affect Clean Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions? Evidence from BRICS and Next-11 Countries," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 68(4), pages 20-50, October-D.
    16. Ali, Wajahat & Abdullah, Azrai & Azam, Muhammad, 2017. "Re-visiting the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Malaysia: Fresh evidence from ARDL bounds testing approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 990-1000.
    17. Tuan-Hock Ng & Chun-Teck Lye & Kar-Hoong Chan & Ying-Zhee Lim & Ying-San Lim, 2020. "Sustainability in Asia: The Roles of Financial Development in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Performance," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 17-44, July.
    18. Shushu Li & Jinglan Zhang & Yong Ma, 2015. "Financial Development, Environmental Quality and Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-22, July.
    19. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Nasir, Muhammad Ali & Hille, Erik & Mahalik, Mantu Kumar, 2020. "UK's net-zero carbon emissions target: Investigating the potential role of economic growth, financial development, and R&D expenditures based on historical data (1870–2017)," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    20. Ulucak, Zübeyde Şentürk & İlkay, Salih Çağrı & Özcan, Burcu & Gedikli, Ayfer, 2020. "Financial globalization and environmental degradation nexus: Evidence from emerging economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:3:p:831-:d:314058. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.