The Singapore Economic Review

This paper recalculates value added, capital formation, capital stock and related multifactor productivity in China’s industrial sectors by further developing the genuine savings method of the World Bank. The sector-level natural capital loss was calculated using China’s official input–output table and their extensions for tracing final consumers. The capital output elasticity in the productivity estimation was adjusted based on these tables. The results show that although the loss of natural capital in China’s industrial sectors in terms of value added has slowed, the impacts on their productivity during the past decades is still quite clear.

Green industry evaluation is a necessary part in the development of low-carbon economy and achieve sustainable development in the economic, social and ecological environment. Establishing a system of reasonable indicators is the key to green industry evaluation. From the connotation of green industry, this paper chooses green industry evaluation indicators with the extensive inclusion of green production, green consumption and green environment. Based on the principle of the maximum information content and the principle of eliminating redundant information, it establishes the evaluation indicators system of green industry. The proposed index system exhibits universal features of selection methods. Furthermore, the indexes of green industry formulated by authorities, such as EMCA, and designed for cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai in China, are described in terms of mass-elected indexes; these indexes can also provide important reference for green industry development in other similar cities, particularly coastal cities.

Green growth is a global priority strategy for responding to climate change. This paper applies the OECD (2011a) green growth monitoring indicators framework to analyze 20 indicators of progress toward green growth specific to Taiwan. Principal Component Analysis and Analytic Hierarchy Process are used as weighting methods to calculate an aggregating composite index and perform sensitivity testing. The results show that for the past decade (2002–2011), Taiwan has been moving toward green growth but has been negatively impacted by its natural capital stock. This indicates that improving natural capital stock is a key for sustaining green growth in Taiwan.

Recent trade literature highlights production sharing among economies [Johnson, R and G Noguera (2012). Accounting for intermediates: Production sharing and trade in value added. Journal of International Economics, 86(2), 224–236), and some studies report that 20–25% of CO₂ emissions can be attributed to international trade [Peters, G, J Minx, C Weber and O Edenhofer (2011). Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008. Proceedings the National Academy of Sciences USA, 108(21), 8903–8908.]. However, the mechanism explaining how and to what extent production sharing affects CO₂ emissions remains unclear. This study, as an extension of [Meng, B, J Xue, K Feng, D Guan and X Fu (2013a). China’s interregional spillover of carbon emissions and domestic supply chains. Energy Policy, 61, 1305–1321.], adopts the perspective of demand spillovers to provide new insights regarding the position of Chinese domestic-regions’ production in Global Value Chains (GVCs) and their associated CO₂ emissions. To this end, we employed a new type of World Input-Output Database (WIOD) in which China’s domestic interregional input–output table for 2007 is endogenously embedded. The pattern of China’s regional demand spillovers across both domestic regions and countries is revealed by employing this new database. These results were then connected to endowments theory, which helps to make sense of the empirical results. It is found that China’s regions are located relatively upstream in GVCs, and had CO₂ emissions in net exports, which were entirely predicted by the environmental extended Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) model. Our study points to micro policy instruments to combat climate change: for example, tax reform for energy inputs that helps to change the production pattern, which then has an impact on trade patterns and so forth.

In this paper, we employed a new inter-country input-output table where China’s productions are differentiated into domestic use, processing exports and non-processing exports (WIOD-DPN table), to compare the CO₂ emissions responsibilities of 13 major regions under producer, consumer and shared accounting systems. The results show that the CO₂ emissions responsibility of advanced countries would become less when the accounting system is changed from a consumer system to a shared system, while that of emerging countries are on the contrary. The degree of these changes depends on the value-added received by the production countries from the global value chain.

As a compact city-state with a modern electricity grid and relatively clean energy sources, Singapore seems ideal for the deployment of the battery electric vehicle (BEV). A fleet of 89 BEVs were deployed in a test-bed that was concluded in 2013. The paper conducts a cost-effectiveness analysis and financial analysis of the Renault Fluence ZE and its comparable gasoline model to assess the economics of BEVs. It concludes that BEV adoption in Singapore is both undesirable (due to higher social costs) and unlikely (due to higher private costs) in the immediate and near future. Where 94% of the population live in high-rise apartments, there will be a heavy reliance on costlier communal charging stations, thereby mitigating the operating savings that BEVs could have offered if home chargers were used. Lifetime costs are not as sensitive to changes in oil prices as expected. For the BEV to be socially viable, the breakeven carbon price amounts to S$9,700 per tonne of CO₂, which suggests that BEVs are not a cost-effective means of reducing carbon emissions in Singapore, or battery prices would need to be halved. Nevertheless, the study demonstrates that exempting the BEV batteries from taxation could support BEV adoption if that were to be a government objective.

Carbon tax and energy tax are among the hot discussions in China. This study conducts simulation studies on them with a CGE model and analyzes their economic impacts, especially on the energy-intensive sectors. The Chinese economy is affected at an acceptable level by the two taxes in different scenarios. The import and export of energy-intensive industries are changed, leading to improved domestic competitiveness. Compared with implementing a single tax, a combined carbon-energy tax reduces more emissions with relatively smaller economic costs. For China, the sooner such taxes are launched, the smaller the economic costs and the more significant emission reductions.

This paper investigates determinants of energy and emission intensities of manufacturing firms in India, from 2000 to 2014. Given that Indian manufacturing sector is one of the world’s most polluting sectors in terms of CO₂ emissions; we arrive at firm level determinants of energy and carbon dioxide emission intensities from consumption of three primary sources of energy, namely (1) Coal, (2) Natural Gas and (3) Petroleum. The results of the regression analysis suggest that there are inter-firm differences in energy and emission intensity. The results indicate that smaller and larger firms are both energy and emission intensive compared to medium sized firms. Similarly, firms spending more in research and development activities are found to be energy and emission efficient, compare to others. Hence, in the global competitive business environment, Government of India should carefully formulate policies suitable for the medium sized firms to make them energy and emission efficient.

In this paper, we explore the economic impact of promotion and realization of an electric vehicle society (EVS). More concretely, this paper emphasizes a computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling approach to evaluate the following issues: economic impacts of subsidies for promotion of an EVS, the possibility of price reductions, industrial structure change toward an EVS, and modal shift occurring toward an EVS. Our simulation results demonstrate that after applying 5–25% up subsidies to five industries, such as electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing, EV transport, solar power, cogeneration and other transport, the total industrial output and city GDP increase. A large growth rate is found in industries where subsidies are introduced alone with non-ferrous metal industry. However, it is interesting that decreasing proportions are found in oil and coal product, mining, heat supply and gasoline vehicle (GV) transport industries. Moreover, all the commodity prices decrease since subsidies are given to some industries. Hence Toyohashi City’s economy shows a direction where the demand for conventional vehicles and energy use are decreased, conversely, the demand for EVs and renewable energy are increased illustrating a different life style from the current one. However, it does not mean that the total CO₂ emission is decreased. EV society makes some industrial outputs larger. Due to the fact that some industrial outputs are increased, CO₂ emissions of EV manufacturing and nonferrous metal are increased more than decreased industries. Thus, introducing 5–25% subsidies to EV manufacturing, EV transport, solar power, cogeneration and other transport can really represent a realistic alternative society to EVS if the total CO₂ emission can be reduced. Therefore, we have to think what can make the total CO₂ emission reduced.

China has established and assigned target responsibilities for local officials in energy conservation and created an evaluation indicator, which is a key institutional arrangement that provides local officials with political incentives to promote carbon abatement policies. In this paper, we elaborate on the relationship between China’s target responsibility system and CO₂ emissions using interprovincial panel data, grouping provinces into Eastern, Central and Western regions to compare China’s CO₂ emissions convergence between the periods of the 10th Five-year Plan and the 11th Five-year Plan. The analysis indicates that the target responsibility system does not noticeably change local officials’ political incentives to engage in carbon abatement because the effect of the target responsibility system for energy conservation seems to be overshadowed by and subject to gross domestic product (GDP) growth targets. Against the backdrop of growing international pressure on climate change issues, this paper argues that China must include in the target responsibility system an indicator of absolute CO₂ emissions reduction as a policy objective.

Using the panel data of 30 provinces in China between 1997 and 2011, we employed the extended STIRPAT model and spatial panel econometrics methods to investigate the relationship between financial development and carbon emissions and test the influence of financial development as well as other factors on provincial carbon emissions per capita among Chinese provinces. The estimation results show that: (i) spatial spillover effects play a role in provincial carbon emissions in China; and (ii) the sum of technical effect and structure effect of financial development surpass its’ sum of direct effect and wealth effect in China, which suggests that financial development reduces carbon emissions per capita. China should pay more attention to the integration of green finance policy and environmental regulation, and establish appropriate mechanisms to strengthen inter-provincial interaction and coordinated development.

This paper discusses how to value a carbon bond and how to choose models for it like CGNPC wind additional carbon benefits of medium-term notes, the first Carbon-bond in China. First, the fractional process with jumps is used to model CERs spot price in BlueNext market and to price a numerical carbon bond. Then, through sensitive analysis for model parameters, the fractional process without jumps is suggested to model CERs spot price finally, but the fractional process with jumps may be more suitable for EA in China. Furthermore, there also discusses how to choose discount rate for those derivatives which are paid off by one currency but its underlying is quoted by another.

This paper verifies the existence of possible tradeoffs between policies directed at reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases and those policies directed at fostering the development of the Brazilian Amazon Region, considering its economic relations with the rest of the country and international markets. To achieve this goal, this paper uses an interregional input–output model, estimated for the Brazilian economy for the year 2004. The results of our analysis show that the sectors with the greatest importance in terms of emissions are cattle and soybean production, which are also the most prominent for the region’s economic development. Although 63% of Brazil’s anthropogenic emissions of CO2eq were concentrated in the Amazon Region, under a consumer perspective the region’s responsibility corresponded to only 24% of emissions in the country, being surpassed by the consumer-based emissions of rest of Brazil (49%), as well as that belonging to foreign countries by means of exports (27%). This poses a dilemma that needs to be faced not only by Brazil but also by developed nations, as the burden of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the Brazilian Amazon region cannot be put only on the poor population of the region.