Search

With the continuous increase in global mariculture production and aquaculture areas, the environmental pollution caused by the mariculture industry is becoming increasingly serious. Faced with environmental issues, countries worldwide have formulated environmental regulations to scientifically intervene in marine environmental pollution issues and promote the green development of the mariculture industry. However, we must determine if strict environmental regulations can effectively promote the green development of the mariculture industry. This article uses the inter-provincial panel data of China's coastal areas from 2003 to 2019 as a sample. We use the entropy-technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution method to measure the intensity of environmental regulation in China's coastal areas and the level of green development of the mariculture industry. On this basis, an economic geography nested matrix was selected to construct a spatial panel econometric model to empirically explore the impact of environmental regulations on the green development of the mariculture industry. This approach also allows us to examine the heterogeneity of the impact of different types of environmental regulations on the green development of the mariculture industry. The research results indicate that environmental regulations have a "U-shaped" impact on the green development of the local mariculture industry, while they have an inverted "U-shaped" impact on the green development of the nearby mariculture industry. Furthermore, heterogeneity exists in the impact of different types of environmental regulations on the green development of the mariculture industry. Based on the research results, this article proposes policy recommendations from the perspectives of flexibly adjusting the intensity of environmental regulations, accelerating the development of voluntary-based environmental regulations, and regulating competition among local governments, which can provide decision-making references for the government to adjust environmental regulation policies and improve the level of green development in the mariculture industry., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Carbon reduction has become a major challenge for China's economy in its transition toward sustainability. The government has been monitoring the behavior of enterprises through regulations to protect the environment, while green finance has rapidly developed in recent years as a new tool to reduce carbon emissions. Despite these measures, few studies have explored the interaction between these two drivers of carbon reduction. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the impact of green finance and environmental regulations on carbon emissions. To determine whether their coordination can lead to greater carbon reduction, the spatial spillover effect of this impact was also investigated. The results show that green finance can reduce carbon emissions and that the interaction of green finance with environmental regulations plays a significant positive role in reducing carbon emissions. Finally, this study concludes that the carbon reduction effects of green finance and environmental regulations have positive spillover effects on adjacent areas., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental policies play an important role in the process of industrial low-carbon transition in developing countries. From the perspective of the impact condition and mechanisms, we discuss how to improve their effectiveness to give full play to the positive impact of environmental regulations. Based on provincial industrial data from 2003 to 2019 in China, this study uses a threshold regression model and endogenous regression to reveal the impact condition and mechanisms of environmental regulations on industrial low-carbon transition. The results suggest that (1) technological innovation capability and cost-bearing capacity are the key conditions for environmental regulations to exert a positive impact on low-carbon transition. (2) Environmental regulations have a positive impact on low-carbon transition through technological innovation (technology), resource reallocation (capital), and skill premium (labor). Research on the implementation conditions and mechanisms of environmental regulations will help policy-makers formulate appropriate and reasonable environmental regulations and eliminate the obstacles between environmental regulations and low-carbon transition, while an assessment of China's environmental policies will provide a reference for environmental governance in other developing countries., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Reducing carbon emissions is an efficient strategy to cope with global warming, which continues to be a frightening element for environmental protection. However, the energy industry is responsible for a lot of pollution in the atmosphere. To promote a low-carbon growth model, it is essential to endorse financial inclusion and environmental regulations. This research uses panel data from 70 nations, covering 1995 to 2021, to examine the interplay between economic growth, human capital, urbanization, trade openness, and environmental regulation as the primary defining element of efficient energy. Several tests have been used to ensure that the data are typically distributed; these include the cross-sectional dependence test, the KMO test, and the Bartlett test. The generalized linear model and Driscoll-Kraay standard errors have also been implemented for interim and final analysis. Results show that low-carbon energy sources are guaranteed for certain economies when financial inclusion and environmental regulation are implemented. Economic development, urbanization, trade openness, and human capital significantly impact green economic recovery. In light of these findings, policymakers are working to increase energy efficiency and boost their citizens' living standards by promoting financial inclusion and environmental regulation like imposing environmental taxes and governmental laws for industries., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Whether heterogeneous environmental regulations in China can improve industrial green total factor energy efficiency (IGTFEE) is essential to sustainable industrial development nationwide. However, under China's fiscal decentralization system, the impact of heterogeneous environmental regulations on the IGTFEE and its underlying mechanism needs further exploration. This study incorporates capital misallocation and local government competition into the research framework and systematically investigates the mechanisms and effects of environmental regulations affecting the IGTFEE under China's fiscal decentralization system. Based on provincial panel data from 2007 to 2020, this study measured the IGTFEE using the Super-SBM model with undesirable outputs. Based on efficiency, this study uses a bidirectional fixed-effects model, an intermediary effect model, and a spatial Durbin model for empirical testing. The results show that the effect of command-and-control environmental regulation on the IGTFEE presents an inverted U shape, while the effect of market-incentive environmental regulation on the IGTFEE presents a U shape. Conversely, the effect of command-and-control environmental regulation on capital misallocation presents a U shape, while the effect of market-incentive environmental regulation on capital misallocation presents an inverted U shape. Capital misallocation is the mediating variable of heterogeneous environmental regulations affecting IGTFEE, but heterogeneous environmental regulations do not affect the IGTFEE through the same mechanisms. The spatial spillover effects of command-and-control and market-incentive environmental regulations on IGTFEE present a U shape. Local governments adopt a differentiation strategy for command-and-control environmental regulation and a simulation strategy for market-incentive environmental regulation. Environmental regulations have spillover effects on the IGTFEE under different competitive strategies, but only the imitation strategy, characterized by the race-to-the-top, can promote local and neighboring IGTFEE. Therefore, we propose the following recommendations: the central government should flexibly adjust the intensity of environmental regulations to maximize the capital allocation effect, set diversified performance assessment indicators to motivate local governments into the healthy competition and reform the modern fiscal system to correct distortions in the behavior of local governments., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Whether environmental regulations are conducive to improving green innovation in water pollution-intensive enterprises (WPIEs) is of guiding significance for China's protection of the water ecosystem environment and sustainable economic development. This study regards the implementation of the "Ten-point Water Plan" (TWP) policy in 2015 as a purely exogenous event for enterprises and employs a quasi-experimental method to fill this gap based on the panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2019. The results reveal that TWP policy has significant negative effects on the green innovation of WPIEs, the main mechanism of which is increased compliance costs. In addition, a heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative effect is stronger for green innovation activities with higher costs and for WPIEs subject to stricter environmental regulations. This paper provides new evidence against the weak Porter hypothesis and implies that WPIEs are likely to purchase technologies and equipment to reduce wastewater emissions rather than green innovation, which means incentive-based measures should be taken to foster green innovation in the environmental policymaking process., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

China's construction industry confronts with the dilemma of carbon emissions in adjusting the environmental regulations. Many studies are neglected on discovering the potential nexus amongst environmental regulations (ERs), technological innovation (TI) and CEI (CEI) and ignores the relationships amongst TI for reducing CEI. To mitigate this gap, this study bridges institutional theory to integrate the practices in the construction industry. This study applies a panel dataset on the construction industry from 30 provinces during 2004-2018 and uses it with a two-step system-generalised method of moments for analysis. The proposed method enables the prevention of the interference of the heteroscedasticity problem and improves certain analytical efficiency. The results are as a guideline for policymakers in rechecking the policies and regulations adequacy. The findings indicate that (1) the forced emission reduction effect is proven by command-and-control and market-based ERs, which can inhibit CEI; (2) voluntary ERs have an inverted U-shaped nexus with CEI; in other words, the green paradox effect shifts to the forced emission reduction effect once the intensity of voluntary ERs increases; and (3) market-based and voluntary ERs reduce CEI effectively by using TI as the mediator in construction industry., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

With rapid economic growth in the twenty-first century, innovation has become an essential component of national development, and industry-university-research regional collaborative innovation is the key to implementing China's innovation plan. Using panel data from 30 provinces and cities in China (excluding Tibet Autonomous Region) from 2011 to 2018, this paper employs the two-stage dynamic DEA model to develop a rating index system of regional collaborative innovation performance, which is divided into knowledge innovation stage and technology innovation stage, and measures the collaborative innovation efficiency of 30 provinces in China. The environmental regulation score is then determined by using the entropy method. Finally, an experimental application of the panel Tobit model is conducted to investigate the impact mechanism of environmental regulation on regional collaborative innovation. The results reveal that the collaborative innovation efficiency values of the majority of provinces are between 0.5 and 0.7, leaving ample room for growth. When the efficiency value of collaborative innovation is broken down by region, the eastern, central, and western regions show a pattern of "rising in the east, stable in the center, and falling in the west." The findings of the Tobit regression reveal that the effect of environmental regulation on regional collaborative innovation performance follows a "U"-shaped distribution, confirming the "Porter Hypothesis." This study proposes remedies and proposals to enhance regional collaborative innovation performance from the perspective of environmental regulation., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As an important indicator of sustainable development, industrial eco-efficiency (IEE) has aroused growing attention from governments all over the world including China, in recent decades. The Chinese government has introduced numerous environmental regulations; however, the environmental pollution issue does not appear to have been solved. Moreover, although several earlier studies have shown that environmental regulations may promote innovation, there is no consensus on their ultimate effects on IEE. Therefore, this study took a critical look at the connection between environmental regulations and IEE in 36 Chinese sub-sectors from 2009 to 2018. Based on the weak Porter hypothesis (weak PH) and strong Porter hypothesis (strong PH), this paper constructed two panel regression models and conducted group analysis by pollution intensity to check the relationships among environmental regulations, technological innovation, and IEE. It was found that environmental regulations can improve technological innovation and IEE, but these impacts vary across different pollution groups. Specifically, environmental regulations have a U-shaped or inverted U-shaped relationship with technological innovation and IEE. Of the 36 sub-sectors, 26 prove the existence of the Weak PH while 10 verify the Strong PH, indicating that environmental regulations generally advocate technological innovation for most sub-sectors but only promote IEE in a few sub-sectors at present. Finally, differentiated policy implications for environmental regulations and technological innovation are provided for decision-makers., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper aims to investigate the effect of environmental regulations on inward foreign direct investment in China. For this purpose, a panel threshold model was constructed to assess the threshold effects of environmental regulations on the influx of foreign direct investments (FDI) . The findings indicate that, under the influence of human capital, the impact of environmental regulations on FDI in China was characterized by a V-shaped curve, indicating an initial inhibitory effect followed by a subsequent increase. A plausible explanation is that specific pollution-generating FDI must withdraw from China because of stringent environmental regulations before human capital reaches a certain threshold level. Meanwhile, impaired by the adverse selection effect, some cleaner-production FDI cannot easily enter China. As a result, environmental regulations in this stage have an inhibitory effect on FDI in China. However, part of the pollution-generating FDI is converted into cleaner production after the human capital level reaches the threshold limit. Further, due to the positive selection effect, additional cleaner-production FDI can also enter China from different destinations. At this stage, environmental regulations boost overall FDI entering China., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The alarming impact of climate change and environmental pollutants has increased the focus of policymakers and think tanks' focus on formulating environmental regulations. Environmental regulations may reduce emissions directly and indirectly, as postulated by the famous Porter Hypothesis. It shows that environmental regulation may enhance pollution-reducing innovation by reducing agency costs while at the same time increasing firms' private benefit. The study is designed to investigate environmental regulations' direct and indirect impact on CO2 and GHG emissions using innovations as mediation factors. The study employs a structural equation method using data on G7 economies from 1990 to 2020 to test the relationship between regulations, innovations, and pollution. The study findings confirm that environmental regulations help reduce emissions directly. Our findings also confirm the Porter hypothesis whereby regulations encourage innovations and result in reduced emissions through this indirect channel. The study findings have significant implications for controlling pollution through placing environmental regulations and encouraging innovations., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Following a consensus among world leaders at COP26 and COP27, every country is trying to deal with environmental issues. In this context, the role of green innovation efficiency is crucial, as it can positively drive the environmental efforts of a country. However, past research has ignored the methods through which a country can drive green innovation efficiency. To address this research gap, this work selected data from 2007 to 2021 in China, measured the green innovation efficiency (GIE) of each province, and constructed a systematic GMM model to analyze the role of environmental regulation policy and human capital on GIE. The findings of the study are as follows. (1) The overall GIE in China is 0.537, which is still at a low efficiency level, and high efficiency is mainly concentrated in the eastern region, while the western region has the lowest level of GIE. (2) The relationship between environmental regulations and GIE in the whole country and in the eastern, central, and western regions is shown to be "U" shaped. The regression coefficient of human capital on GIE is found to be positive, but there is regional variation, which is not significant in the western region and shows a significant positive correlation in other regions. (3) There is regional heterogeneity in FDI's impact on GIE; the results in the eastern region are consistent with the national results, which can promote GIE, but not significantly in the central and western regions; marketization can improve GIE in the national and eastern regions, but is not significant in the central and western regions; scientific and technological innovation can promote GIE except in the central region; and economic development can improve GIE in all regions. Studying the impact of environmental regulation and human capital development on the efficiency of green innovation and realizing the coordinated development of the environment and economy under institutional innovation and human capital innovation is of great significance for the development of China's low-carbon economy and has important reference value for accelerating sustainable economic development., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Achieving sustainable environmental growth and preventing further environmental degradation are challenging goals for policymakers. This study looks at environmental laws and green finance's role in fostering a more sustainable environment. The literature still needs to empirically or theoretically investigate how environmental laws and green financing affect carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, particularly when combined with moderating factors such as social and economic globalization. As a result, this study investigates how environmental laws and green funding can help the N-11 nations cut their CO2 emissions. Our research uses empirical data from a group of the N-11 nations that span the years 2000 to 2019. To handle issues with panel data analysis, such as cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity, we use advanced panel approaches (CIPS and CADF unit root and cointegration test and cross-sectional augmented ARDL). This research demonstrates that green financing (GFI) and environmental laws (ENV) have a negative but significant effect on CO2 emissions. While social globalization moderates the causal relationship between energy consumption and GDP while negatively and significantly causing GFI and ENV with CO2 emissions among the N-11 countries, economic growth has had a positive and significant effect on CO2 emissions in the N-11 countries. According to our research, nations could achieve the SDG-7 and SDG-13 goals if they adopted green financial and environmental policies., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Prior studies on environmental standards have highlighted the significance of urbanization and transportation in affecting environmental sustainability worldwide. As the empirical and theoretical debates are still unresolved and divisive, the argument of whether urbanization, transportation and economic growth in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries cause greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remains unclear. This study aim is to examine dynamic linkage between transportation, urbanization, economic growth and GHG emissions, as well as the impact of environmental regulations on GHG emission reduction in ASEAN countries over the years 1995-2018. On methodological aspects, the study accompanies a few environmental studies that check the cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity issues. Moreover, the new cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) methodology is also applied in the study to estimate the short-run and long-run effects of the factors on GHG emissions. Substantial evidence is provided that GHG emissions increase with transportation, urbanization and economic growth but decrease with the imposition of environmental-related taxations. Augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated effect mean group (CCEMG) also support the findings of CS-ARDL estimates. Finally, the study calls for drastic actions in ASEAN countries to reduce GHG emissions, including environmentally friendly transportation services and environmental regulation taxes. This study also provides the guidelines to the regulators while developing policies related to control the GHG emission in the country., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Effected by spatial difference and types of environmental regulation, enhanced environmental regulation does not necessarily lead to reduce net carbon emissions (NCE). Based on panel data of 30 province-level administrative regions in China from 2003 to 2018, this paper analyzed the impact of heterogeneous environmental regulations on NCE using geographically weighted regression (GWR). The results showed that (1) the total NCE of each province in China presented an increasing trend followed by fluctuation, with obvious spatial aggregation characteristics. (2) The intensity of four environmental regulations, command-and-control (CAC), market-incentive (MI), public-participation (PP), and voluntary environmental program of firm (VEPF) tended to increase slightly over the study period with decreasing spatial heterogeneity. (3) CAC environmental regulations had a "green paradox" effect on NCE, meaning an improving CAC environmental regulation would surprisingly increase its negative effects and contribute to NCE growth. The effect of MI environmental regulation on NCE shifted from overall promotion to partly promotion and even suppression. PP and VEPF environmental regulation would reduce NCE. The suppressive effect of PP environmental regulation grew over time, while VEPF did not. Finally, based on the research conclusion, some policy suggestion are proposed for differentiated management, diverse system of governance, and collaborative governance., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In the context of the new economic normal, environmental protection and economic growth have become the focus of academic attention. This paper explores the effect and impact mechanism of environmental regulations on the outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of enterprises by using data from the China Industrial Enterprise Database and the Directory of Overseas Investment Enterprises (Institutions) for the years 2004 to 2010. The findings are summarised as follows. Firstly, environmental regulations have a significant positive effect on the OFDI of Chinese enterprises, and this result remains robust after considering the outcomes of robustness tests and endogeneity issues. Secondly, the promotion effect of environmental regulations on the OFDI of Chinese enterprises obviously differs across investment motivations and industry characteristics. Thirdly, productivity gains are important channels through which environmental regulations promote the OFDI of enterprises. These findings have great significance for the effective formulation of environmental regulatory policies and the stable development of the OFDI of Chinese enterprises., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Based on the unique micro-data of newly built polluting firms for the period of 2009-2018, this paper adopts the conditional logit model to empirically evaluate the impact of environmental regulations on the location choice of polluting firms. Moreover, we extend the theoretical model by considering that the environment regulations not only influence the pollution cost but also the level of technological innovation and labor cost. The empirical results show that polluting firms tend to flow into areas with stringent environmental regulations, which supports the Porter hypothesis, but the effect of environmental regulations have a divergent impact on heavily polluting firms. Heterogeneous analysis indicates that environmental regulations have shown a positive impact on the location choice of private and foreign-funded firms but no significant impact on that of state-owned firms; the impact of environmental regulation is consistent with pollution haven hypothesis for firms in the central region but is in line with Porter hypothesis for firms in other regions. Meanwhile, the probability of air polluting firms entering areas with stricter environmental regulations is higher than that of water-polluting ones. Finally, this paper further empirically tests the conduction mechanism, that is, environmental regulations can affect the location choice of polluting firms by affecting the regional technological innovation capabilities and labor cost., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Environmental challenges are increasingly becoming global issues due to the negatively induced effect of carbon dioxide on the natural climate and the well-being of human beings. Industrialisation has intensified the energy demand which brought the surge in the consumption of conventional non-renewable energy resources, including fossil fuels. Despite the overwhelming evidence of negative effects of utilising conventional energy on the atmosphere, there has been a steady rise in industrial production which has encouraged firms to adopt technological innovation. In this sense, many countries have developed various strategies, frameworks and regulations to reduce industrial-driven environmental degradation. Environmental-friendly compliant production technology can be an important substitute model to improve economic development. This study examines the relationship between environmental regulation and firm performance with mediating the impact of product market competition in Turkey. The study uses multi-sectoral firm-level Turkish data covering from 2004 to 2020 which was analysed via numerous methods that control for endogeneity bias. The results of generalised method of moment indicate a strong positive effect of sustainable environmental regulation (SER) on firm performance (FP). Moreover, after mediating the effect of product market competition by decomposing the firms into low product market competition (LPMC) and high product market competition (HPMC), finding reveals a negative effect of SER on FP of LMPC whereas a positive impact was found in the HPMC firms. This finding shows that HPMC compels managers to form a differentiated profit maximisation strategy. In this sense, competition can play a dedicated role in enhancing firm performance in the context of government deliberate strategies and regulations for control of the industrial negative effect on the environment. The industrial sector needs to switch from conventional energy practices to sourcing green and renewable energy that would not jeopardise the environmental quality., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study investigates the effect of Chinese environmental regulations on the quality of export products. As the main way for the government to protect the environment, environmental regulations have greatly influenced the production behavior of enterprises. Based on the data of China's pollutant discharge fee implementation and industrial enterprise-pollution panel data, we find that the government's environmental regulations have significantly improved the quality of export products, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests. Further analysis shows that the increase in the quality of export products originating from the regulated areas could be attributed to promoting enterprise innovation and reducing resource misallocation. The results in this study provide evidence that the Chinese government could coordinate economic and environmental protection in the new era., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Industrial upgrading is the key to promoting green economic efficiency. Coordination between environmental regulations and industrial structure can lead to sustainable economic growth. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the mechanism by which environmental regulation (ER) promote green economic efficiency (GEE) under the mediating role of industrial structure optimization. Using robust and comprehensive measures of green economic efficiency, we assess how various environmental regulations affect green economic efficiency as well as the intermediate effect of industrial structure of a certain province with provincial panel data during the period 2003-2017. The results of dynamic panel two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) confirm the heterogeneous effects of the three types of ER, namely control-and-command regulation, market-based regulation, and voluntary regulation on GEE in China. The spatial analysis demonstrates that control-and-command and voluntary regulations significantly accelerate GEE in inland provinces, while they have insignificant effect in coastal provinces. Based on the mediating analysis, we find that market-based regulation is conducive to GEE through both advanced and rationalized industrial structure, whereas control-and-command regulation improves GEE through advanced industrial structure only. The voluntary-based regulation on one hand stimulates GEE through advanced industrial structure, but on other hand impedes it through rationalized industrial structure. The results could provide critical insights and a theoretical basis for policy makers in reasonable optimization of industrial structure and guaranteeing green economic efficiency., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As carbon emissions are one of the major problems of an emission-generating firm (EGF), there is a dire need to reduce them, and so this study fills this gap in the literature by considering the optimal behavior of environmental policies. This research develops policy measures under a duopoly game model such as carbon emission tax (CET) and subsidy on green investment (SGI). Additionally, we formulate a simulation model to measure the optimal behavior of CET, SGI, and production quantity to maximize profit and carbon emission reduction. The findings indicate that when green investment decreases, the EGFs are better able to pay CET and the government is also capable of providing SGI. Moreover, a lower unit production cost reduces more carbon emissions versus a higher unit production cost. In this way, the government receives revenue due to CET implementation and an EGF obtains revenue due to SGI. Both parties gain benefits at the same time and play important roles in cutting carbon emissions to make the environment clean. This study helps governments in finding their own optimal CET and SGI. An optimal SGI assists decision-makers at reducing carbon emissions and targeting profit maximization., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2017, this paper constructs a quantile regression econometric model to analyze whether China's environmental regulation has an impact on export trade and to verify whether the Porter hypothesis has been valid in China in recent years. The results show that in the short term, environmental regulations have a restraining effect on export trade, while in the long run, due to the existence of innovation efficiency, environmental regulations will change from having a restraining effect to a promoting effect on export trade. Strict environmental regulations will reduce the production cost of Chinese products, further improve the export competitiveness of Chinese enterprises, and promote export trade. The empirical results verify the conclusion that the Porter hypothesis is confirmed in China. The following three suggestions are proposed for China's exports to promote the win-win of China's green development and export trade: promote the realization of international and domestic double circulation, avoid becoming "pollution shelters" and support technological innovation in environmental protection industries., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

India relies heavily on coal-based thermal power plants to meet its energy demands. Sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ) emitted from these plants and industries is a major air pollutant. Analysis of spatial and temporal changes in SO 2 using accurate and continuous observations is required to formulate mitigation strategies to curb the increasing air pollution in India. Here, we present the temporal changes in SO 2 concentrations over India in the past four decades (1980-2020). Our analysis shows that the Central and East India, and Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) are the hotspots of SO 2 , as these regions house a cluster of thermal power plants, petroleum refineries, steel manufacturing units, and cement Industries. Thermal power plants (51%), and manufacturing and construction industries (29%) are the main sources of anthropogenic SO 2 in India. Its concentration over India is higher in winter (December-February) and lower in pre-monsoon (March-May) seasons. The temporal analyses reveal that SO 2 concentrations in India increased between 1980 and 2010 due to high coal burning and lack of novel technology to contain the emissions during the period. However, SO 2 shows a decreasing trend in recent decade (2010-2020) because of the environmental regulations and implementation of effective control technologies such as the flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) and scrubber. Since 2010, India's renewable energy production has also been increased substantially when India adopted a sustainable development policy. Therefore, the shift in energy production from conventional coal to renewable sources, solid environmental regulation, better inventory, and effective technology would help to curb SO 2 pollution in India. Both economic growth and air pollution control can be performed hand-in-hand by adopting new technology to reduce SO 2 and GHG emissions., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

The relationship between green innovation and environmental regulations has received increasing attention from researchers, gaining prominence both in academia and in organizations. Thus, this study aims to present a summary of the most relevant academic researches that relate the environmental regulations and green innovation, knowing in a standardized way the scientific information of this field of study. Through a systematic literature review, 96 academic papers published in the journals of Science Direct, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, between 2011 and 2019, were analyzed. The results showed that environmental regulations are among the main factors that induce companies to green innovation, given that most of the articles analyzed have a positive relationship. However, as there are still contradictions in the literature, new studies are emerging addressing this relationship with other organizational aspects, and considering the different mechanisms of environmental regulations to try to explain how and under what conditions these policies affect green innovation in companies. These findings can contribute to the researchers for the formation of a solid conceptual base on the subject, guiding for future research., (© 2020. Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

A gravity model is used to investigate the impact of the stringency and enforcement of the environmental regulation on Spanish investment flows abroad during the period 2008-2018. From the pollution haven hypothesis' (PHH) perspective, the research tests if offshoring and outsourcing processes from Spanish multinational enterprises (MNEs) were due to movements through FDI of high-polluting industries seeking refuge in countries with a low standard of legal environmental protection framework. The analysis includes FDI into primary, manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail, professional services, leisure services, utilities, and other services. When no sectoral approach is developed, PHH seems to be not held. However, the multisectoral perspective states that MNEs in primary and manufacturing sectors seek refuge in countries with a low standard of legal environmental protection framework., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This study measures the environmental regulation effect and pattern of carbon emission and energy efficiency through data envelopment analysis and econometric estimation. One of the most important ways to achieve a green transition is promoting technical progress through environmental regulation. Though China has witnessed rapid economic growth over the last two decades, the country can improve it further through adopting sustainable green energy and establishing more energy-efficient industries to strike a good balance between economic and social developments. The oil and carbon dioxide emission performances form the most important metrics. This study uses panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2017 to assess the effect of environmental regulation on energy production. The nonradial directional distance function (NDDF) is used to measure the total factor energy efficiency index (TFEEI). The panel system GMM model, which can effectively address endogenous problems and regional variability, is utilized to research the nonlinear relationship between environmental regulations and EEI under various environmental regulations to study it. The findings reveal a considerably modest total average EEI amount for energy-intensive industries, averaging between 0.55 and 0.58, which is way below the ideal value (i.e., 1). Furthermore, the results of the dynamic panel data model revealed a significant U-shaped relationship between China's EEI and environmental regulation. The results show that as the values of market-based environmental regulations (MERs) and command and control environmental regulations (CCERs) exceed the corresponding levels, the impact of environmental regulation on the TFEEI increases gradually. This study will aid policymakers in better understanding the efficacy of different levels of environmental regulations to make more educated decisions., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This article uses the super-efficiency DEA method to measure the efficiency of the sports industry ecosystem and uses Tobit model to study its influencing factors. Conclusions are as follows: (1) China's sports industry ecosystem average efficiency is 0.541, which has not reached an effective state. Similarly, there are significant spatial differences in the three regions, showing the layout of east high and west low. (2) With national perspective, resource endowment has a positive relationship with national sports industry ecosystem efficiency, environmental regulation has a significant negative impact on the sports industry ecosystem efficiency, and the GDP growth rate has a positive impact. Moreover, the openness is negatively correlated, and the impact of human capital structure is not significant. (3) From a regional perspective, resource endowment has a significant positive impact on the eastern and central regions, and a significant negative correlation with the western region. Environmental regulation has no significant impact on the efficiency of the eastern sports industry ecosystem but has a significant negative correlation in the central and western regions. The effect of GDP growth rate in the eastern and central regions is not significant, but positive effects were found in the western region context. Furthermore, the human capital structure effect is negative in the central region, but no significant relationship in other regions. The openness has a positive impact on the eastern and western regions, while it has a negative impact on the central region., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Incorporating vertical environmental protection pressure, fiscal pressure, and government environmental regulatory behavior into a unified research framework, this paper empirically tests local governments' regulatory behavior on sulfur dioxide under incompatible dual pressures using data of 30 regions in China from 2003 to 2017. The results show that as the vertical environmental protection pressure increases, local governments will improve the regulation intensity on sulfur dioxide. However, as local governments' fiscal pressure increases, the effect of vertical environmental protection pressure on local governments' environmental regulations will be weakened. Based on the "neighborhood imitation effect," the impact of neighboring regions is considered when measuring fiscal pressure. The results still show that fiscal pressure will weaken the improving effect of vertical environmental protection pressure on the local government's environmental regulation. After controlling the endogenous problem and a series of robustness tests, the above conclusions are still valid. The results indicate that improving the status of environmental protection in the performance evaluation is an effective means to promote the implementation of environmental regulations by local governments. However, China's environmental governance cannot depend solely on improving the proportion of environmental protection in performance evaluations of local officials. A reasonable promotion incentive mechanism should be designed to avoid the incompatibility pressure caused by conflicting tasks to distort the local government's compliance with the central government's pollution control intention., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

While local protectionism and market segmentation owing to fiscal decentralization are not conducive to broad economic development, they may be rational choices on a local scale. Based on a spatial Durbin model, we analyzed the relationship between environmental regulations and market segmentation in China using interprovincial panel data for 2004-2018. The results indicated that the "beggar-thy-neighbor" phenomenon persists in China; environmental regulations have a U-shaped impact on market segmentation, i.e., in most regions, environmental regulation can break down market segmentation. Regions with greater decentralization are better able to promote local market integration through environmental regulation, suggesting that local governments are better able to compensate for market failures when vested with greater power. Hence, we propose that the central government should improve performance evaluation indicators for local governments and grant them greater autonomy; additionally, local governments should increase the intensity of environmental regulations as appropriate, thereby promoting both environmental protection and the unification of domestic markets., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental sustainability has become a major concern for policymakers across the globe. In this regard, understanding the factors responsible for environmental degradation is particularly important for developing nations. Against this backdrop, this study aims to evaluate the impacts of environmental regulations and other vital macroeconomic aggregates on the ecological footprints in the context of four fossil fuel-dependent South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The major findings from the econometric analysis, accounting for cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity, and structural break issues in the data, reveal that environmental regulations portray significant roles in directly and indirectly reducing the ecological footprints across South Asia. Besides, the elasticity estimates verify the authenticity of the environmental Kuznets curve and the pollution haven hypotheses. On the other hand, non-renewable and renewable energy consumptions are found to increase and decrease the ecological footprints, respectively. Moreover, renewable energy use and environmental regulations are found to jointly reduce the ecological footprints further. More importantly, environmental regulations are predicted to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of economic growth, non-renewable energy use, and foreign direct investment inflows while increasing the favorable environmental impacts associated with renewable energy use. Furthermore, the country-specific impacts of environmental regulations on the ecological footprints are found to be more or less homogeneous to the corresponding panel estimates. The environmental Kuznets curve and pollution haven hypotheses are evidenced to hold for the majority of the four South Asia nations. In line with these findings, several relevant policy-level suggestions are put forward., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

This paper analyzes the factors explaining the slight decrease of CO 2 emissions in the European Union (EU), recorded during the last period. With a focus on 12 EU countries, we apply a panel data analysis over the period 1990 to 2017 and we investigate the impact of renewable energy share in energy production, and the role of EU environmental regulations, in explaining the level of CO 2 emissions. Our static and dynamic panel data analysis points to a negative impact of an increased renewable energy share on CO 2 emissions, while there is no clear evidence about the role of environmental regulations. It appears that the 2020 climate and energy package contributed to the reduction of pollution level, while the ratification of the Kyoto protocol by the EU countries had no significant influence. At the same time, our findings validate the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis and the pollution halo (PH) hypothesis, showing that foreign companies export eco-friendly technologies. Our results prove to be robust regarding the use of static fixed and random effects models, of two-stage least square models and the use of difference and system generalized method of moments (GMM) frameworks.

Lower happiness caused by environmental pollution has attracted widespread attention, but existing studies have ignored the impact of environmental governance on happiness, and hardly a research has discussed whether environmental regulations will affect happiness. To make up for the above shortfall, based on the micro data come from Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2015 and the macro data of 28 provinces in China from 2013 to 2015, this study distinguishes three types of environmental regulations which are economical environmental regulation (EER), legal environmental regulation (LER) and supervised environmental regulation (SER), and the econometrical analysis of the linear relationship or potential nonlinear relationship between them and happiness is carried by ordinary least square (OLS) and ordered probit (Oprobit). Considering the time lag of policy implementation, this paper further tests the lagging effects. The results show that EER significantly improves happiness in the long run after implementation, and LER has no significant effect on happiness in the current year and the following year, while the significant nonlinear relationship appear after 2 years, whereas SER has a negative effect on happiness in the year and 2 years later. Therefore, in addition to continuing to increase government investment in environmental administration with adequate budgets, local governments should strengthen the environmental legal system and administrative accountability. And the most important of all, the government should create more avenues for public participation and pay enough attention to the supervision of the public. Finally, this research has great theoretical and realistic significance for the government to control environmental pollution.

The implementation of the extended producer responsibility (EPR) for e-waste is an important measure to develop an ecological civilization. In order to advance manufacturing enterprises to effectively implement resource and environmental responsibility, this study investigates the main causes of environmental regulation failure from the perspective of government and enterprises. The game theory was used to establish an evolutionary game model between government regulatory departments and electronic and electrical products' manufacturing enterprises. A system dynamic model was utilized to construct the stock-flow graph of the game between government and enterprises, and to carry out simulation analysis under different strategies. The results found that the probability of an enterprise undertaking extended responsibility gradually increased and stabilized with the increase of government supervision and punishment intensity; the government's regulatory probability and punishment are important factors affecting the enterprises' compliance with regulations and responsibilities. The study suggests that government should focus on strengthening environmental regulations from the aspects of improving laws and regulations, establishing a regular monitoring system and innovating incentive and constraint mechanism.

China is a vast country with a wide range of difference in local customs and practices, whose governments at all levels have certain flexibility in policy formulation and implementation accordingly. Therefore, it is necessary to compare the impacts of environmental regulations (ERs) on subjective well-being (SWB) in different areas, which was totally overlooked by many scholars. Combining environmental regulations data with subjective well-being data from CGSS (2015), we conduct an empirical study on the linear and non-linear relationships between three different types of ERs and SWB in this study, then, we further verify the lag effects because of the time lag-related policies. Research results provide support that (1) in the eastern region, when command-and-control regulations(CMCER) and market-based regulations (MBER) have a reversed "U"-shaped curve connection with SWB, informal regulations (INFER) would reduce subjective well-being, and (2) for the central region, a "U"-shaped curve relationship exists between CMCER with SWB, while MBER and INFER have no significant impact, and (3) in the western region, MBER can promote SWB more sharply, and CMCER and INFER play negative roles in SWB improvement. Finally, by comparing the hysteresis results of different regions, we find that INFER and MBER are required to be strengthened for all above regions. In addition, implementation of CMCER is the highlight point for western region. Our findings have meaningful policy implications and the government should develop appropriate environmental regulations based on local conditions.

This paper conducts quasi-experiment design with Chinese listed companies microdata to investigate the effect and mechanism of corporate participation in carbon emission trading market on firm financial performance by using the staggered difference-in-differences method. We show that: a) corporate participation in carbon emission trading market can enhance firm financial performance; b) an increase in green innovation ability and a decrease in strategic choice variance both partially mediate the relationship between carbon emission trading and firm performance; c) executive background heterogeneity and external environmental uncertainty moderate the relationship between carbon emission trading and firm performance in different directions; d) our further study indicates that carbon emission trading pilot policy has a spatial spillover effect on firm financial performance in the neighboring provinces. Therefore, we recommend that the government and enterprises make an effort to further stimulate the vitality of corporate participation in carbon emission trading market., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Environmental justice is an important safeguard for pollution control, and this paper is interested in its ability to promote carbon emission reduction. One unique facet of reinforcing local environmental justice involves the establishment of environmental courts by Intermediate People's Courts. Taking this as the starting point, this study constructs a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the strengthening of urban environmental justice. Analyzing empirical data from 283 prefecture-level cities in China spanning 2006 to 2019, we employ multi-period and spatial difference-in-differences approaches to probe the impact of environmental justice strengthening on carbon reduction. Our results indicate a substantial contribution of strengthened environmental justice to reducing carbon emissions. Specifically, the establishment of environmental courts can curtail carbon emissions by an estimated range of 11.7 to 12.9%. Also, the mechanism analysis underscores that the carbon reduction effect primarily arises from enhanced efficiency in processing environmental cases. Moreover, this effect is notably pronounced in regions with robust governmental environmental regulations. Notably, in areas with limited public environmental concern, environmental courts effectively complement existing environmental regulations. Furthermore, a significant positive spillover effect of environmental courts on carbon emission reduction is observed in geographically adjacent economic zones., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Amidst resource loss and environmental protection constraints, achieving green development necessitates enhancing green total factor productivity (GTFP) as a means of promoting rational and efficient resource allocation, thereby balancing economic growth and environmental preservation. Meanwhile, literature on the subject matter of GTFP from a sustainability viewpoint is minimal. As a result, this study employs the panel dataset from 30 provinces of China spanning the period 2005 to 2020 and utilizes the method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) developed by Machado and Santos Silva (2019) to analyze the heterogeneous role of green innovation, environmental regulations, and fiscal expenditure on GTFP. Moreover, the controlling variable for this study includes renewable energy and economic growth. Furthermore, this study investigates the heterogeneous combined impact of green innovation and fiscal expenditure (GTE*FSE) on GTFP. The findings of the MMQR reveal that green innovation has a positive impact on GTFP, while fiscal expenditure, environmental regulations, and renewable energy consumption have a negative impact. GTE*FSE has a positive and significant effect on GTFP, indicating that FSE can reinforce and increase the positive impact of GTE on GTFP in the long run. The study also reveals that economic growth has a mixed effect on GTFP, depending on the quantiles. Furthermore, environmental regulation has a significant and negative impact on GTFP, contradicting the Porter hypothesis. Likewise, the robustness of the findings is confirmed by the results of the fully modified OLS (FMOLS) and dynamic OLS (DOLS) estimations, which indicate a similar impact of the determinants on GTFP as observed in the MMQR analysis. This reinforces the validity of the findings and suggests that the observed relationships are robust to different estimation techniques. Furthermore, the findings of the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (D-H) panel causality test reveal significant bidirectional causality between renewable energy consumption and GTFP and fiscal expenditure and GTFP. Policy-makers need to channel a large chuck of their fiscal spending into green innovation so as to boost sustainability., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

China is currently in a new era of an urban transition to a low-carbon economy and digital economic development. Smart cities, as an advanced form of information-based urban development, may be the key to the urban transition to low-carbon emissions. This paper examined the effect of smart city construction (SCC) on urban low-carbon transitions and its transmission mechanisms in China from the dual perspectives of reducing urban total carbon emissions (TCE) and improving urban total-factor carbon emission efficiency (TFCEE). Utilizing a multi-period difference in differences (DID) method, this study was conducted based on panel data of 245 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2021. The results demonstrated that SCC both reduced TCE and enhanced TFCEE. The effects of SCC were stronger in cities with more stringent environmental regulations. SCC achieved the dual effect of reducing TCE and enhancing urban TFCEE by promoting green technological progress and a low-carbon transformation of city residents' lifestyles. Moreover, optimization of the industrial structure was also a transmission mechanism for SCC to improve TFCEE. These conclusions provide an empirical basis for the SCC to empower low-carbon transitions of cities and help countries in different regions to transform the extensive urban development mode and promote urban low-carbon economic development., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)