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Acquirer’s Carbon Risk, Host Country Environmental Regulations, Cross-Border M&A and Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China

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Abstract

Due to imperfect environmental regulation system, developing countries may be treated as “Pollution Havens” by firms from developed countries, imposing impacts on the local and even global environment. Thus, this paper examines the following questions at the country and city levels, respectively: First, whether China’s environmental regulation system (i.e., government and civil environmental regulations) has an impact on the M&A location choices of developed-country acquirers and what the moderating role will the acquirers’ carbon risks play. Second, whether the carbon risks of acquirers from developed countries entering China have an impact on carbon emissions in target regions and what moderating role will the environmental regulation system in the target regions play. By collecting 810 M&A deals from 2002 to 2021 in BvD_Zephyr database and conducting empirical analysis based on logistic, time series, and panel fixed effect regressions, we find that: first, environmental regulations at the country level often have a greater deterrent effect than those at the city level. Second, environmental regulations in China suffer from the problem of a “top down” system, i.e., although government environmental regulations have many measures and thus a high deterrent effect, the effects of civil environmental regulations are poor. Third, attracting foreign investment may help reduce carbon emissions.

Highlights

  • A sample of 810 M&A deals is analyzed.

  • Chinese environmental regulation system’s effect on M&A is examined.

  • M&A deal’s influence on carbon emission is explored.

  • The above effects are investigated at both national and sub-national levels.

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Data Availability Statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

Notes

  1. [2] This paper determines whether a country is a developed country based on United Nations (UNCTAD) data for 2022 and whether it is a member of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development).

  2. [3] We restrict the host countries for M&As to developed countries and China, which better reflects the deterrent effect of China's government and civil environmental regulations on acquirers in developed countries, i.e., whether China’s higher-level government and civil environmental regulations can make these acquirers choose to acquire in developed countries rather than other developing countries with poorer environmental regulations.

  3. [4] Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications. See Appendix 1 for manufacturing industry segmentation criteria.

  4. [5] To validate the adequacy of our study's sample size, we conducted a power analysis assessing the statistical power associated with our chosen sample size. The results indicate that, particularly for the multiple predictors and logistic model employed in our study, with a significance level set at 0.05, the statistical power of our sample size is determined to be 0.9.

  5. [5] According to UN Global Compact, the number of local or global NGOs participating in UN Global Compact in Ireland is 0 until 2018; the number of local or global NGOs participating in UN Global Compact in Canada is 0 until 2013. Source: https://www.unglobalcompact.org/

  6. [6] According to Shanghai Commission of Economy and Information Technology. Shanghai strengthens Zhoupu industrial restructuring to serve the development of Disney area. http://sheitc.sh.gov.cn/sjxwxgzcjd/20150831/0020-667793.html.

  7. [7]According to Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology. Changping District to increase the intensity of low-end industrial enterprises exit.

    http://jxj.beijing.gov.cn/jxdt/gzdt/201911/t20191113_504957.html

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Funding

2023 USST Research and Reform Key Project: Construction of an internationalization at home world-class scientific and engineering talent training system driven by international certification.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sino-German College, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, People’s Republic of China

    Jianquan Guo

  2. Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Cologne, 50931, Cologne, Germany

    He Cheng

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  1. Jianquan Guo
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  2. He Cheng
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Correspondence to Jianquan Guo.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 

Table 12 UK SIC 2007 2-digit industry in manufacturing sector
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Table 13 M&A deals by acquirer UK SIC 2-digit industry and year
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Table 14 M&A deals by acquirer country and target country
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Table 15 Definition and source of variables
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Table 16 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for Research question 1 (country-level)
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Table 17 M&A deals in China by acquirer UK SIC 2-digit industry and year
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Table 18 M&A deals in China by target city
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Table 19 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for Research question 1 (city-level)
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Table 20 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for Research question 2 (country-level)
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Table 21 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for Research question 2 (city-level)
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Guo, J., Cheng, H. Acquirer’s Carbon Risk, Host Country Environmental Regulations, Cross-Border M&A and Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China. Int J Environ Res 18, 30 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41742-024-00580-y

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