Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and firm carbon emissions: Evidence using a China provincial EPU index

Global warming is currently the biggest problem. China is the world's highest CO2 emitter. The Chinese authorities agreed to overcome global pollution per the current Paris treaty and have shown deep concern regarding global warming. Hence, policymakers are paying attention to economic policy uncertainty. Motivated by this issue, the study examines the effect of energy use, economic policy uncertainty, and economic growth on China's CO2 emissions from 1970 to 2018 by employing a novel dynamic ARDL simulation model. The findings show that energy use and economic growth have statistically substantial long-run and short-run positive effects on CO2 emissions. However, economic policy uncertainty has a statistically insignificant effect on CO2 emissions, due to firms' sustainability policies. Energy use can have valuable policy consequences, particularly for environmental sustainability. Therefore, based on the empirical findings, the crucial partnership and feedback on China's carbon emission policy should be carried forward.

Do energy use and economic policy uncertainty affect CO2 emissions in China? Empirical evidence from the dynamic ARDL simulation approach.

Determinants of Spillovers between Islamic and Conventional Financial Markets: Exploring the Safe Haven Assets during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper examines return and volatility connectedness between Bitcoin, traditional financial assets (Crude Oil, Gold, Stocks, Bonds, and the United States Dollar-USD), and major global uncertainty measures (the Economic Policy Uncertainty-EPU, the Twitter-based Economic Uncertainty-TEU, and the Volatility Index-VIX) from April 29, 2013, to June 30, 2020. To this end, the Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression (TVP-VAR) model, dynamic connectedness approaches, and network analyses are used. The results indicate that total spillover indices reached unprecedented levels during COVID-19 and have remained high since then. The evidence also confirms the high return and volatility spillovers across markets during the COVID-19 era. Regarding the return spillovers, Gold is the centre of the system and demonstrates the safe heaven properties. Bitcoin is a net transmitter of volatility spillovers to other markets, particularly during the COVID-19 period. Furthermore, the causality-in-variance Lagrange Multiplier (LM) and the Fourier LM tests' results confirm a unidirectional volatility transmission from Bitcoin to Gold, Stocks, Bonds, the VIX and Crude Oil. Interestingly the EPU is the only global factor that causes higher volatility in Bitcoin. Several potential implications of the results are also discussed.

Risk Transmissions between Bitcoin and Traditional Financial Assets during the COVID-19 Era: The Role of Global Uncertainties

Do cryptocurrencies hedge against EPU and the equity market volatility during COVID-19? – New evidence from quantile coherency analysis

Determinants of within and cross-country economic policy uncertainty spillovers: Evidence from US and China

Connectedness of commodity, exchange rate and categorical economic policy uncertainties — Evidence from China

Based on the provincial data of China from 2011 to 2020, this paper analyzes the effect and influence mechanism of Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) on Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP) theoretically and empirically. The results show that OFDI can significantly improve GTFP, and this conclusion is still valid after measurement replacement, instrumental variable method and systematic GMM treatment. The mechanism analysis demonstrates that digital inclusive finance can strengthen the promoting effect of OFDI on GTFP, and OFDI can promote invention innovation and utility model innovation, thus enhancing GTFP. The heterogeneity analysis shows that OFDI can play a stronger role in promoting GTFP in the eastern region, western region, and the regions with a low marketization level. Therefore, actively promoting OFDI, optimizing the accuracy of OFDI, speeding up the development of digital inclusive finance, and formulating policies according to local conditions, play a vital role in promoting GTFP and the transformation of economic structure.

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How Does Outward Foreign Direct Investment Affect Green Total Factor Productivity? Evidence from Increment and Quality Improvement

Household leverage ratio is an important factor affecting family stability. Digital finance has changed the means of payment and consumption frequency, but the relationship between digital finance and household leverage ratio is still unclear. The existence of household debt is defined as the existence of leverage. The higher the household debt, the greater the household leverage. Based on the matching data of the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) 2019 and the China Digital Inclusive Finance Index, this paper studies the impact of digital finance on household leverage ratio and explores its mechanism theoretically and empirically. This research finds that digital finance can significantly promote the household leverage ratio and this conclusion is still valid after instrumental variable method and robustness test. The mechanism analysis shows that digital finance can promote household over-consumption and further expand household leverage ratio. Digital finance can also reduce household leverage ratio by increasing household income. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that the role of digital finance in expanding leverage ratio is stronger for urban areas and households with low educational level. For households with higher assets, digital finance helps to reduce leverage ratio. Therefore, the government should guide residents to consume rationally and give full play to the entrepreneurship-facilitating and income-increasing effect of digital finance. Meanwhile, the residents themselves should speed up the cultivation of digital financial literacy, which is of vital significance for lowering household leverage ratio and systemic financial risks. China’s development level of digital finance ranks among the top in the world. Studying the role of digital finance in China is helpful to provide experience reference for countries around the world.

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Gengyu Tian

Papers

Determinants of within and cross-country economic policy uncertainty spillovers: Evidence from US and China

Do cryptocurrencies hedge against EPU and the equity market volatility during COVID-19? – New evidence from quantile coherency analysis

Connectedness of commodity, exchange rate and categorical economic policy uncertainties — Evidence from China

How Does Outward Foreign Direct Investment Affect Green Total Factor Productivity? Evidence from Increment and Quality Improvement

Influence of Digital Finance on Household Leverage Ratio from the Perspective of Consumption Effect and Income Effect