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Does the promotion pressure on local officials matter for regional carbon emissions? Evidence based on provincial-level leaders in China

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Abstract

This paper constructs data from 30 provinces in mainland China from 1997 to 2016 and mainly adopts panel data fixed effects models to investigate how the promotion pressure on local officials affects regional carbon emissions. Our empirical results show that the relationship between the promotion pressure on local officials and regional carbon emissions has a dynamic evolution characteristic during our research period. Specifically, the promotion pressure on local officials is positively associated with regional carbon emissions before 2009; however, this relationship weakened after China’s carbon emission regulatory policies were strengthened in 2010. Furthermore, our heterogeneity analysis results show that the effect of promotion pressure on regional carbon emissions is moderated by the regional industrial structure, the economic development level, regional innovation capability, the tenure of officials and the age of officials. The conclusions of this study are helpful for understanding the driving factors of regional carbon emissions from the political economy perspective, and they also have implications for the formulation of performance evaluation and carbon emission reduction policies.

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Notes

  1. The data of GDP is from China Statistical Yearbook (1998–2017), calculated according to the current price. The data of carbon emission is from China Energy Statistical Yearbook (1998–2017), and the data of CEI is calculated by the ratio of carbon emissions to GDP.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is supported by the funds of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71602038, 71871146), the 13th Five-Year Plan Project of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Guangdong Province (GD20CGL21, GD20CYJ10), the Characteristic innovation projects in ordinary colleges and universities in Guangdong Province (2018WTSCX219), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2021A1515011923), Humanities and Social Science Project of the Ministry of Education of China (20YJC630123).

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  1. Xiude Chen and Huiyang Li contributed to the work equally and should be regarded as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510520, China

    Xiude Chen & Yanting Ke

  2. Center for Education Big Data Research of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, 510520, China

    Xiude Chen

  3. Lingnan (University) College, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Huiyang Li

  4. Business School, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Yazhi Song

  5. Guangzhou City University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510800, China

    Yulian Peng

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  1. Xiude Chen
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Correspondence to Yazhi Song.

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Chen, X., Ke, Y., Li, H. et al. Does the promotion pressure on local officials matter for regional carbon emissions? Evidence based on provincial-level leaders in China. Environ Geochem Health 44, 2881–2903 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-01050-6

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