Climate policy in emerging economies: Evidence from China’s Low-Carbon City Pilot

Zhang, Haibo, Di Maria, Corrado, Ghezelayagh, Bahar and Shan, Yuli (2024) Climate policy in emerging economies: Evidence from China’s Low-Carbon City Pilot. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 124. ISSN 0095-0696

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Abstract

In this paper, we assess the effectiveness of early climate policy in emerging economies by causally evaluating the impact of China’s Low-carbon City Pilot (LCCP) on city-level per-capita CO2 emissions and CO2 intensity of GDP over the period 2003-2017. The idiosyncrasies of the policy design pose significant challenges for causal identification, which we overcome within a synthetic control framework. Contrary to previous contributions, our results suggest that the LCCP had no significant impact on either carbon emissions or intensity. The main takeaway of our empirical investigation is that even in emerging economies, effective environmental policy requires transparent, quantifiable targets, and credible enforcement.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE) Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Economic Theory Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	04 Mar 2024 18:32
Last Modified:	05 Jun 2026 20:41
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/94494
DOI:	10.1016/j.jeem.2024.102943

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