This study examines the socio-economic factors influencing material efficiency in over 100 countries from 1970 to 2016, amidst growing material consumption and environmental concerns. It assesses material efficiency using production and consumption metrics, revealing four distinct trajectories reflecting diverse economic and demographic contexts. The research shows that globally, economic growth and technological advancement significantly enhance material efficiency. However, the effects of such factors vary greatly by income, human development level, and aging demographics. As countries advance in income and human development, and as their populations age, the beneficial effect of economic growth on material efficiency diminishes. Conversely, the positive impact of technological progress intensifies with higher levels of human development. Moreover, as societies age, population growth shifts from hindering to promoting material efficiency, especially in "super-aged" societies. The findings highlight the need for context-specific strategies for material efficiency, acknowledging the unique stages of development and demographics of each country.

The “National Comprehensive demonstration of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy” (ESER policy) is a green fiscal policy to facilitate China’s green sustainable development. Green sustainable development is facilitated by green technological innovation. Thus, evaluating the influence of the ESER policy on green technological innovation is essential. This study employs the difference-in-differences model to assess the ESER policy effects. The findings suggest that the ESER policy facilitates green technological innovation, but the policy effect has inhibited green technology innovation in neighboring cities. Mechanism analysis indicates that this policy effect is realized through increasing scientific research investment intensity and promoting industrial structure upgrading. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this policy is effective in facilitating green technological innovation when performed in eastern, non-old industrial base, non-resource-based, and high green innovation level cities. In addition, the ESER policy implemented in conjunction with innovation policy can be more effective in promoting green technological innovation. These results provide valuable insights for improving the ESER policy and offer helpful guidelines for green fiscal policymaking in other countries.

China's government has launched the innovative city pilot (ICP) policy since 2008 and taken green development as the principle goal of innovative city construction. However, whether or not the ICP policy shapes green development remains largely unknown. Leveraging variation in the timing of the ICP policy implementation across cities, we investigate the causal impact of innovative city construction on green development, as measured by green total-factor productivity (GTFP). Our staggered difference-in-differences (DID) estimator shows that cities which implement the ICP policy experience a 5.3% increase in GTFP. This effect appears one year after the introduction of ICP policy and shows an upward trend over time. Our mechanism analysis further confirms that the ICP policy effect is driven by green innovation effect, which is realized through the support of innovation policy and increased investment in innovation. Finally, substantial heterogeneity is explained by geographic location, environmental constraint, resource endowment, city size and different levels of innovation. Our paper underscores the pivotal role of innovative cities in promoting green development, which warrants nationwide expansion.

Corporate environmental information disclosure (EID) is an important green signal. While prior literature well documents that the leading officials' accountability audit of natural resources assets (AANRA) can effectively enhance the environmental regulatory pressure of local governments, little is known about whether this pressure can promote corporate EID. Utilizing panel data of 2,073 Chinese industrial listed enterprises from 2008-2021, we employ a staggered difference-in-difference-in-differences approach and identify the causal effect of AANRA on corporate EID. The results show that the EID quality of heavily polluting enterprises in AANRA cities increases by 3.28 % after the implementation of AANRA, and this effect persists. Meanwhile, AANRA does not trigger selective disclosure of enterprises, and its improvement of negative EID is more effective. Our mechanism analysis suggests that AANRA improves corporate EID through environmental incentive effect, environmental, social and governance (ESG) engagement effect and cost constraint effect. Moreover, the effect of AANRA varies with firms, industries, and regions, and it is more pronounced in non-state-owned firms, small firms, growing and mature firms, highly competitive firms, high-tech firms, and firms located in the eastern region, high audit intensity region and better institutional region. Our findings highlight the role of government environmental regulatory pressure in corporate EID, providing new insights into green transformation for enterprises in developing countries like China.

Despite increasing evidence documenting the role of the outgoing audit of natural resources (OANRA) in environmental governance and enterprise innovation, little is known about its impact on enterprises' total factor productivity (TFP). To address this question, we treat the OANRA policy launched in 2014 in China as a quasi-natural experiment. We adopt a difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) method that exploits three-dimensional variations: city (i.e., OANRA cities versus non-OANRA cities), industry (i.e., more polluting industries versus less polluting ones), and year (i.e., before and after the OANRA policy). Employing a dataset of Chinese industrial listed companies from 2012 to 2019, we reveal that after the OANRA implementation, enterprises' TFP in more polluting industries of OANRA cities decreases by 4.0%. Our mechanism analysis shows that the OANRA restrains the TFP by reducing the financing scale of enterprises and increasing environmental investment of governments. Further, the heterogeneity analysis finds the inhibitory effect of the OANRA is more prominent in large-scale and state-owned enterprises, as well as enterprises located in eastern, low fiscal pressure, and high pollutant emission cities. Our findings provide support for the neoclassical economics hypothesis that the OANRA increases enterprises' compliance costs and decreases their productivity.

To achieve green and low-carbon development, the Chinese government has selected pilot cities to implement the energy-saving and emission-reduction (ESER) policy in three batches since 2011. So far, there has been no systematic evidence on whether this policy can mitigate carbon emissions. To identify the causal impact of the ESER policy on carbon emissions, we exploit variations in the timing of this policy across cities and assemble a panel dataset of China's 284 cities from 2003 to 2019. Based on a difference-in-differences (DID) framework, we find a relative decline in carbon emissions in pilot cities after the ESER policy implementation, and in particular, this effect follows an increasing trend over time. Our mechanism analysis further corroborates that the carbon-reduction effect of the ESER policy could be achieved through promoting energy-saving effect, optimizing structure effect and strengthening green technique effect. In addition, the observed effect is abundantly heterogeneous in terms of geographic location, environmental constraint, financial self-sufficiency, resource endowment and carbon emissions distribution. Our findings provide empirical evidence from developing countries on the effectiveness of carbon-reduction policy, which demonstrates China's determination to achieve its two climate goals (carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060).

政府环境审计作为一项特殊的环境规制政策,能在发挥环境治理职能的同时,影响重污染企业的创新能力.基于2007—2019年中国A股工业上市公司的面板数据,本文利用2009年审计署颁布《审计署关于加强资源环境审计工作的意见》这一外生事件构建准自然实验,采用双重差分法检验政府环境审计对重污染企业创新能力的影响.研究发现:政府环境审计能够显著提升重污染企业的创新能力,具体表现为企业期末无形资产占总资产的比重显著增加.机制分析表明,政府环境审计通过提升重污染企业营运能力进而促进了重污染企业创新.同时,较高的政府补贴水平会削弱这一激励效应.进一步异质性分析表明,在注册地位于东部、西部及东北地区的企业、所有权属性为国有控股的企业和负债规模适中的企业中,政府环境审计能够有效激励重污染企业的创新能力.研究结论证明了政府环境审计能间接促进相关重污染企业的创新活动,展示了政府环境审计在不同情形下的政策效果.