Economics and Management Department, North China Electric Power University, Baoding, Hebei 071003, People's Republic of China.
Economics and Management Department, North China Electric Power University, Baoding, Hebei 071003, People's Republic of China.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 May 1;715:136771. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.136771. Epub 2020 Jan 18.
China's financial development boomed after the recent world financial crisis in 2007. Financial development may affect an economy and hence carbon emissions significantly. No research has examined their relationship since this crisis up to now. Against this background, the effect of financial development on carbon intensity in China from 2007 to 2016 is investigated. The spatial and temporal patterns, and the dynamic evolution of both China's provincial carbon emissions and financial development were firstly investigated. Then a Spatial Durbin Model was employed to explore the effects of financial development, since this crisis, on carbon intensity, controlling related variables. The results show that financial development will significantly increase the local province's emissions but significantly decrease adjacent areas' emissions to a larger extent, so that the overall effect is that financial development will curb carbon emissions. The paper concludes that carbon emission reductions in China since 2007 may not be caused by the financial resources being channeled into the research and development of emission-reduction technologies or into high value-added firms. Hence, it is suggested that measures be taken to channel financial resources into the right projects and firms.
中国的金融发展在 2007 年最近的世界金融危机后蓬勃发展。金融发展可能会显著影响经济和碳排放量。自这场危机以来，尚无研究考察它们之间的关系。在此背景下，本文研究了 2007 年至 2016 年中国金融发展对碳强度的影响。首先考察了中国省级碳排放量和金融发展的时空格局和动态演变。然后，采用空间杜宾模型，在控制相关变量的情况下，探讨了金融危机以来金融发展对碳强度的影响。结果表明，金融发展将显著增加本地省份的排放量，但会在更大程度上显著减少相邻地区的排放量，因此总体效应是金融发展将抑制碳排放。本文的结论是，自 2007 年以来中国的碳减排可能不是由于金融资源被引导用于减排技术的研发或高附加值企业。因此，建议采取措施将金融资源引导到正确的项目和企业中。
