Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2022.2076142
The effect of environmental regulation on firm productivity: evidence from pulp and paper industry in China
Yijie Wang
Kaihao Liu
Sažetak
The relationship between environmental regulation and firm
productivity has been widely debated but inconsistencies in findings
across different studies. Using detailed firm-level micro-data
from 2000 to 2007, this paper employs difference-in-difference
combined with matching based on entropy balancing method to
explore the effect of environmental regulation on firm total factor
productivity (TFP) in pulp and paper industry in China. Our main
findings are as following: Firstly, stricter environmental regulation,
as represented by the Wastewater Discharge Standards for Pulp
and Paper Industry in Shandong province, increases firm TFP significantly.
Moreover, the coefficients of interest are robust to multiple
robustness checks. Secondly, dynamic effects estimates
reveal that when faced with this phase-in environmental regulation,
firms take the foreseeably increasing strictness into account
from the very beginning and prefer to take one-step adjustment
to reach full compliance. Thirdly, potential mechanism analysis
finds that the positive effect mainly comes from the improvement
of resource allocation efficiency within firms. Fourthly, the heterogeneity
test indicates that the effect of environmental regulation
on firm TFP is heterogeneous across firms with different sizes,
ages, ownerships, capital intensity, and export status. Finally, this
paper provides convincing and insightful evidence that environmental
regulation has the potential to achieve the dual goals of
environmental sustainability and economic growth and is thus of
broader significance for understanding the enforcement of environmental
regulation in developing countries.
Ključne riječi
Environmental regulation; productivity; pulp and paper industry
Hrčak ID:
303730
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.3.2023.
Posjeta: 179 *