Environmental Rules and Low-carbon Transformation of Export Trade in RTAs
As the number and variety of environmental rules in regional trade agreements(RTAs)continue to increase,understanding how environmental rules in RTAs affect the low-carbon transformation of export trade has become an important topic that needs urgent research.Using the signing of RTAs that include environmental rules as a quasi-natural experiment,the article examines the relationship between environmental rules in RTAs and the low-carbon transformation of export trade and its underlying mechanisms.This analysis employs paired data from 66 economies from 1995 to 2018 and utilizes a multi-period difference-in-differences approach.The research re-sults show that the environmental rules in RTAs significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions embodied in unit ex-ports,demonstrating a notable effect on the low-carbon transformation of export trade.This conclusion still holds after a series of robust tests.In addition,this effect has significant heterogeneity across products,industries,the content of environmental rules,and pairs of economies.Further mechanism testing shows that the environmental rules in RTAs can promote the low-carbon transformation of export trade by promoting knowledge sharing and up-grading energy structure.This article provides important empirical evidence for China to expand its network of high-standard free trade zones globally and achieve its"dual carbon"goals.
environmental ruleslow-carbon transformation of export tradequasi-natural experiment
万方数据
维普
