Author
Listed:
- Yiming Zhang
(International Business School, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Liutai Avenue, Chengdu 611130, China)
- Zuoliang Ye
(International Business School, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Liutai Avenue, Chengdu 611130, China)
- Kaijun Gan
(International Business School, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Liutai Avenue, Chengdu 611130, China)
Abstract
Trade liberalization has enabled China to become a global manufacturing hub. However, an increasing focus on pollutant emissions has accompanied China’s rapid economic growth. This paper uses the Annual Survey of Industrial Firms and the Annual Energy Survey of Industrial Firms from 1998 to 2007 to identify the effects of trade liberalization in final goods and intermediate goods on pollutant emissions of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. The difference-in-difference method is used to analyze the data, with China’s accession to the World Trade Organization serving as an exogenous policy shock that brought trade liberalization. The paper’s findings indicate the following: (1) Trade liberalization has reduced the tariffs on final goods, which has led to a notable reduction in the intensity of pollutant emissions from Chinese manufacturing firms. (2) Trade liberalization in intermediate goods, meanwhile, has led to a significant increase in the pollutant emission intensity of manufacturing firms. However, the emission reduction effect observed in final goods is more pronounced. (3) The difference-in-difference-in-difference method was used to examine the heterogeneity of the pollutant emission effect of trade liberalization across manufacturing firms. Our analysis revealed that trade liberalization has significantly enhanced the pollutant emission intensity of state-owned enterprises while exhibiting no significant effect on foreign invested enterprises. Furthermore, trade liberalization has intensified pollutant emissions among exporting firms.
Suggested Citation
Yiming Zhang & Zuoliang Ye & Kaijun Gan, 2024.
"Trade Liberalization and Pollutant Emissions: Micro Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Firms,"
Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-21, August.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:16:p:6772-:d:1451734
Download full text from publisher
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:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:16:p:6772-:d:1451734. 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.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.