IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jlands/v13y2024i10p1603-d1491255.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lessons from the Pilot Project of Korean ETS on the Local Landscape of Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Yongrok Choi

    (Department of International Trade, Inha University, Inharo 100, Nam-gu, Incheon 22221, Republic of Korea)

  • Ziqian Tang

    (Industrial Security & e-Governance, Inha University, Inharo 100, Nam-gu, Incheon 22221, Republic of Korea)

  • Yunning Ma

    (Industrial Security & e-Governance, Inha University, Inharo 100, Nam-gu, Incheon 22221, Republic of Korea)

Abstract

For a sustainable landscape of local economies, many researchers have emphasized the importance of field-oriented differentiation in government policies. In particular, the Paris Agreement, based on the bottom-up approach, aims to maximize the participation of all economic agents, in contrast to the top-down approach of the Tokyo Protocol. In response to these global paradigm shifts in the local landscape, local governments in Korea have made significant efforts to adapt to sustainable development during the pilot phase of emission trading scheme (ETS), during the period from 2015 to 2020. This study evaluates the performance of these local government policies in the transition to a carbon-zero economy. Using the general non-radial directional distance function (GNDDF), we found that Gyeongsang Province demonstrated enhanced environmental total factor productivity (TFP) during the pilot project, whereas the Seoul metropolitan area lagged behind due to a lack of governance. As the economic center of Korea, Seoul showed poor environmental performance because of the arbitrary elimination of green belt areas and unchecked land development, resulting in environmental degradation, a trend common in many developing countries facing climate adaptation challenges. To address these urbanization issues, this study concludes that a balanced approach combining stricter regulations with market-oriented promotional incentives is essential for optimizing the transition of local economies to a sustainable landscape.

Suggested Citation

  • Yongrok Choi & Ziqian Tang & Yunning Ma, 2024. "Lessons from the Pilot Project of Korean ETS on the Local Landscape of Economy," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-19, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:10:p:1603-:d:1491255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/10/1603/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/10/1603/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fare, Rolf & Shawna Grosskopf & Mary Norris & Zhongyang Zhang, 1994. "Productivity Growth, Technical Progress, and Efficiency Change in Industrialized Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 66-83, March.
    2. Lin, Boqiang & Sai, Rockson, 2021. "A multi factor Malmquist CO2emission performance indices: Evidence from Sub Saharan African public thermal power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    3. Tan, Xiujie & Wang, Rui & Choi, Yongrok & Lee, Hyoungsuk, 2024. "Does Korea's carbon emissions trading scheme enhance efficiency for sustainable energy and utilities?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    4. Pan, Yinghao & Zhang, Chao-Chao & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Lv, Suxiang, 2024. "Environmental performance evaluation of electric enterprises during a power crisis: Evidence from DEA methods and AI prediction algorithms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    5. Zhang, Ning & Choi, Yongrok, 2013. "Total-factor carbon emission performance of fossil fuel power plants in China: A metafrontier non-radial Malmquist index analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 549-559.
    6. Zhou, P. & Ang, B.W. & Wang, H., 2012. "Energy and CO2 emission performance in electricity generation: A non-radial directional distance function approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 221(3), pages 625-635.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jiaming Wang & Xiangyun Wang & Shuwen Wang & Xueyi Du & Li Yang, 2024. "Dual Differences, Dynamic Evolution and Convergence of Total Factor Carbon Emission Performance: Empirical Evidence from 116 Resource-Based Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-26, December.
    2. Jiaming Wang & Chengyao Lin & Xiangyun Wang & Shuwen Wang, 2024. "Environmental Regulation, Factor Marketisation Allocation and Carbon Emissions Performance: Empirical Evidence from Resource-Based Cities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-24, August.
    3. Zhou, Tao & Huang, Xuhui & Zhang, Ning, 2023. "The effect of innovation pilot on carbon total factor productivity: Quasi-experimental evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    4. Lin, Boqiang & Sai, Rockson, 2022. "Towards low carbon economy: Performance of electricity generation and emission reduction potential in Africa," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    5. Tian Xia & Siyu Li & Yunning Ma & Yongrok Choi, 2025. "Is China’s Urban Development Planning Sustainable? Evidence from the Transportation Sector in Cities Along the Belt and Road Initiative Route," Land, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-26, February.
    6. Xu, Chong & Wang, Bingjie & Chen, Jiandong & Shen, Zhiyang & Song, Malin & An, Jiafu, 2022. "Carbon inequality in China: Novel drivers and policy driven scenario analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    7. Qian Wang & Zhuoya Du & Boyu Wang & Yung‐ho Chiu & Tzu‐Han Chang, 2022. "Environmental regulation and foreign direct investment attractiveness: Evidence from China provinces," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 899-917, May.
    8. Nie, Yongyou & Cheng, Dandan & Liu, Kui, 2020. "The effectiveness of environmental authoritarianism: Evidence from China's administrative inquiry for environmental protection," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    9. Xiao, Huijuan & Wang, Daoping & Qi, Yu & Shao, Shuai & Zhou, Ya & Shan, Yuli, 2021. "The governance-production nexus of eco-efficiency in Chinese resource-based cities: A two-stage network DEA approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    10. Zhang, Ning & Zhao, Yu & Wang, Na, 2022. "Is China's energy policy effective for power plants? Evidence from the 12th Five-Year Plan energy saving targets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    11. Hua Duan & Bin Li & Qi Wang, 2024. "Static High-Quality Development Efficiency and Its Dynamic Changes for China: A Non-Radial Directional Distance Function and a Metafrontier Non-Radial Malmquist Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-19, July.
    12. Cheng, Zhonghua & Li, Lianshui & Liu, Jun & Zhang, Huiming, 2018. "Total-factor carbon emission efficiency of China's provincial industrial sector and its dynamic evolution," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 330-339.
    13. Jianglong Li & Boqiang Lin, 2016. "Green Economy Performance and Green Productivity Growth in China’s Cities: Measures and Policy Implication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-21, September.
    14. Duan, Na & Guo, Jun-Peng & Xie, Bai-Chen, 2016. "Is there a difference between the energy and CO2 emission performance for China’s thermal power industry? A bootstrapped directional distance function approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1552-1563.
    15. Lin, Boqiang & Sai, Rockson, 2021. "A multi factor Malmquist CO2emission performance indices: Evidence from Sub Saharan African public thermal power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    16. Yanni Yu & Yongrok Choi, 2015. "Measuring Environmental Performance Under Regional Heterogeneity in China: A Metafrontier Efficiency Analysis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 46(3), pages 375-388, October.
    17. Zhang, Ning & Kong, Fanbin & Choi, Yongrok, 2014. "Measuring sustainability performance for China: A sequential generalized directional distance function approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 392-397.
    18. Li, Aijun & Zhang, Aizhen & Huang, Huijie & Yao, Xin, 2018. "Measuring unified efficiency of fossil fuel power plants across provinces in China: An analysis based on non-radial directional distance functions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 549-561.
    19. Lin, Boqiang & Xu, Mengmeng, 2018. "Regional differences on CO2 emission efficiency in metallurgical industry of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 302-311.
    20. Lin, Boqiang & Du, Kerui, 2015. "Modeling the dynamics of carbon emission performance in China: A parametric Malmquist index approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 550-557.

    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:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:10:p:1603-:d:1491255. 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.