Abstract
Does international trade affect the environment while promoting economic growth? This question has received increasing attention in recent years. Previous research on the trade-environment relationship has mostly focused on the macro- and export levels. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model from a micro-perspective, creatively constructed a dataset of Chinese listed companies, and use the propensity score matching (PSM) method to conduct empirical tests to investigate the impact of companies' import behavior on environmental performance at the micro-level. Our study shows that companies that import intermediate goods are more environmentally friendly and validates the robustness of this result. Furthermore, we discuss the potential mechanisms that affect pollution emissions. This paper also has important policy implications that policymakers should consider reducing import tariffs on intermediate goods, thereby reducing import costs for enterprises and promoting green trade. Business owners should develop rational production strategies, strengthen technological innovation, establish social responsibility, and improve the environmental performance of their companies.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
We abbreviate World Trade Organization as WTO, the same as follows.
\(\theta\) represents the resource input share of company i. It must be ensured that 0 ≤ \(\theta\) ≤ 1.
We abbreviate total factor productivity as TFP, the same as follows.
HS code is the customs code, short for Harmonized System of Codes. BEC is a comprehensive summary of international trade goods according to their main categories, divided into three categories: capital goods, intermediate goods and consumer goods.
Due to the difference in statistical caliber, there will be the result that the same company has different names in China listed company database and customs database, and this situation cannot be matched by using simple STATA command.
Among them, the major polluting industries are divided into ten industries, such as agriculture and food processing industry, food manufacturing industry, textile industry. Major testing industries are divided into ten industries, such as equipment manufacturing, metal products industry, chemical fiber manufacturing. The rest are non-polluting industries.
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This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [21BJL070].
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Cai, M., Cui, R. & Li, D. The role of imports in reducing emissions: evidence from Chinese listed companies. Environ Dev Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03901-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03901-x