scholarly journals Economic Policy Uncertainty, Environmental Regulation, and Green Innovation—An Empirical Study Based on Chinese High-Tech Enterprises

Author(s):  
Yue Zhu ◽  
Ziyuan Sun ◽  
Shiyu Zhang ◽  
Xiaolin Wang

As the continuous changes in environmental regulations have a non-negligible impact on the innovation activities of micro subjects, and economic policy uncertainty has become one of the important influencing factors to be considered in the development of enterprises. Therefore, based on the panel data of Chinese high-tech enterprises from 2012–2017, this paper explores the impact of heterogeneous environmental regulations on firms’ green innovation from the perspective of economic policy uncertainty as a moderating variable. The empirical results show that, first, market-incentivized environmental regulation instruments have an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation output, while voluntary environmental regulation produces a significant positive impact. Second, the U-shaped relationship between market-based environmental regulation and innovation output becomes more pronounced when economic policy uncertainty is high. However, it plays a negative moderating role in regulating the relationship between voluntary-based environmental regulation and innovation output. This paper not only illustrates the process of technological innovation by revealing the intrinsic mechanism of environmental regulation on firm innovation, but also provides insights for government in environmental governance from the perspective of economic policy uncertainty as well.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoqing Li ◽  
Zongyi Hu ◽  
Qing Zhang

Abstract Green technology innovation is imperative to sustainable and environmentally sound economic development and is currently facing increasingly serious environmental threats. However, existing research has overlooked the uncertainties in economic policies. Based on the logical relationship between environmental regulation, economic policy uncertainty, and green technology innovation, this study empirically analyzed the quantitative relationship among these three variables using the fixed-effect panel method and provincial panel data from 2000 to 2017 for 30 administrative regions of China. The results show that environmental regulation is positively correlated with green innovation, whereas economic policy uncertainty has a negative influence on green innovation, thereby regulating the relationship between the remaining two factors. Moreover, considerable regional heterogeneity exists in these causal influences, i.e., environmental regulation promotes green innovation in the eastern and middle regions but not significantly in the west. The uncertainty actively moderates the impact of environmental regulation on green innovation in all regions with an adjustment coefficient of approximately 0.8; however, it inhibits green innovation in different degrees, especially in the eastern and middle regions. Based on empirical results, we conclude that strict and appropriate environmental regulations are necessary and effective in China to encourage green technology innovation, especially in regions with uncertain economic policies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Md Qamruzzaman ◽  
Tahar Tayachi ◽  
Ahmed Muneeb Mehta ◽  
Majid Ali

The determinants of innovation output in empirical literature were extensively investigated by considering diverse sets of variables. Still, the impact of economic policy uncertainty on innovation output is yet to unleash. To mitigate the existing research gap, the study investigated the association between EPU and innovation output, considering a panel of 22 countries over 1997–2018. The study employed a dynamic panel quantile regression and system-GMM specification causality test for discovering elasticity and directional association both in the long-run and the short-run. Study findings disclosed negative statistically significant effects running from EPU to innovation output except innovation measured by R&D. Moreover, institutional quality and FDI exposed positive and statistically significant association with innovation output. In terms of directional causality, unidirectional causality running from EPU and FDI to innovation output was established, whereas bidirectional causality was established between institutional quality and innovation output.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Hanan Naser

The pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19) creates fear and uncertainty causing extraordinary disruption to financial markets and global economy. Witnessing the fastest selloff in the American stock market in history with a plunge of more than 28% in S&P 500 has increased the volatility of global financial market to exceed the level observed during the financial crisis of 2008. On the other hand, Bitcoin value has shown considerable stability in the last couple of months peaking at $10,367.53 in the mid of February 2020. In this context, the aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 numbers on Bitcoin price taking into consideration number of controlling variables including WTI-oil price, S&P 500 index, financial market volatility, gold prices, and economic policy uncertainty of the US. To do so, ARDL estimation has been applied using daily data from December 31, 2019 till May 20, 2020. Key findings reveal that the daily reported cases of new infections have a marginal positive impact on Bitcoin price in the long term. However, the indirect impact associated with the fear of COVID-19 pandemic via financial market stress cannot be neglected. Bitcoin can also serve as a hedging tool against the economic policy uncertainty in the long term. In the short run, while the returns of economic policy uncertainty have no impact on Bitcoin price, the growth in the new cases of COVID-19 infection and returns of financial market volatility have more positive significant impact on Bitcoin returns.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Liu ◽  
Zepeng Zhang

Abstract More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has created massive economic policy uncertainty (EPU). EPU and its economic fallout have been a hot topic of study, however, the impact of EPU on CO2 emissions has been seldom addressed to date. This paper investigates the direct impact of the EPU on CO2 emissions and indirect effect via the environmental regulation at the national and regional levels using the panel data model and provincial panel data from 2003 to 2017 in China. The empirical results show that the central region is the most special one, which all explanatory variables except energy consumption are all non-significant even at the 10% level. For other samples, there is a significant positive correlation between EPU and CO2 emissions, whether in the national or regional level. Additionally, environmental regulation alone can achieve the purpose of curtailing carbon emissions. However, when the EPU is taken into consideration, environmental regulation exerts a significantly positive effect on CO2 emissions, leading to unintended increase in emissions. Moreover, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis was confirmed in the national and eastern samples, while CO2 emissions increase monotonically as economic level grows for western datasets. Based on the overall findings, some policy implications were put forward.


Author(s):  
Guangtong Gu ◽  
Wenjie Zhu ◽  
◽  
◽  
◽  
...  

The modern finance industry is composed of not only numerous financial intermediaries but also internet-based mechanisms which are operated by mobile phone users and online consumers daily. In the coming 10 years, estimates suggest that over half of banks’ functions will likely be replaced by high-tech artificial intelligence. Given the great ongoing shifts in contemporary financial systems, the transmission effects of internet-based finance practices have introduced an important yet unaddressed empirical question on the coupling relationship between the internet finance industry and economic policy uncertainty (EPU). This paper adopts the time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model with stochastic volatility (TVP-SV-VAR) model and novel data from Alibaba Corp. to investigate this relationship. We find: First, the impact of internet-based financial approaches on EPU is greater than the reversal effect, indicating that China’s gross domestic product (GDP) is largely influenced by the online finance industry. Second, the lag impacts are time varying and become stable after 2016, corresponding to the current Chinese government’s long-term strategic plan that emphasizes maintaining the economy’s overall stability. Lastly, additional evidence shows that the online financial approaches are positively correlated with consumers’ behaviors, implying that the online finance industry is gaining its momentum when people are using e-currency rather than real cash. After all, it takes time to observe the real effect of these macro policies. With internet and information technology developing, artificial intelligence is being used in the areas of big data, credit lending, and risk control. This largely reduces the data analyzing cost for internet finance companies and makes risk control more convenient.


Complexity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Zongxin Zhang ◽  
Ying Chen ◽  
Weijie Hou

The global financial market shocks have intensified due to the COVID-19 epidemic and other impacts, and the impacts of economic policy uncertainty on the financial system cannot be ignored. In this paper, we construct asymmetric risk spillover networks of Chinese financial markets based on five sectors: bank, securities, insurance, diversified finance, and real estate. We investigate the complexity of the risk spillover effect of Chinese financial markets and the impact of economic policy uncertainty on the level of network contagion of financial risk. The study yields three findings. First, the cross-sectoral risk spillover effects of Chinese financial markets are asymmetric in intensity. The bank sector is systemically important in the risk spillover network. Second, the level of risk stress in the real estate sector has increased in recent years, and it plays an important role in the path of financial risk contagion. Third, Economic policy uncertainty has a significant positive impact on the level of network contagion of financial risk of Chinese financial markets.


Green Finance ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-382
Author(s):  
Md Qamruzzaman ◽  

<abstract> <p>The determinants of innovation output in empirical literature have been extensively investigated by considering diverse sets of variables. Still, the impact of economic policy uncertainty on innovation output is yet to unleash. The study investigates the association between EPU and innovation output to mitigate the existing research gap, considering a panel of 22 countries over 1997–2018. The study employs a dynamic panel quantile regression and system-GMM specification causality test to discover elasticity and directional association both in the long and short run. Study findings disclosed negative statistically significant effects running from EPU to innovation output except innovation measured by R &amp; D.; moreover, institutional quality and FDI expose positive and statistically significant association with innovation output. In directional causality, unidirectional causality runs from EPU and FDI to innovation output, whereas bidirectional causality establishes between institutional quality and innovation output.</p> </abstract>


Complexity ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 2022 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Xinyu Wu ◽  
Meng Zhang ◽  
Mengqi Wu ◽  
Hao Cui

In this paper, we investigate the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on the conditional dependence between China and U.S. stock markets by employing the Copula-mixed-data sampling (Copula-MIDAS) framework. In the case of EPU, we consider the global EPU (GEPU), the American EPU (AEPU), and the China EPU (CEPU). The empirical analysis based on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite (SSEC) index in China and the S&P 500 index in the U.S. shows that the tail dependence between China and U.S. stock markets is symmetrical, and the t Copula outperforms alternative Copulas in terms of in-sample goodness of fit. In particular, we find that the t Copula-MIDAS model with EPU dominates the traditional time-varying t Copula in terms of in-sample fitting. Moreover, we observe that both the GEPU and AEPU have a significantly positive impact on the conditional dependence between China and U.S. stock markets, whereas CEPU has no significant impact. The tail dependence between China and U.S. stock markets exhibits an increasing trend, particularly in the recent years.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Hanan Naser

The pandemic of coronavirus (COVID-19) creates fear and uncertainty causing extraordinary disruption to financial markets and global economy. Witnessing the fastest selloff in the American stock market in history with a plunge of more than 28% in S&amp;P 500 has increased the volatility of global financial market to exceed the level observed during the financial crisis of 2008. On the other hand, Bitcoin value has shown considerable stability in the last couple of months peaking at $10,367.53 in the mid of February 2020. In this context, the aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 numbers on Bitcoin price taking into consideration number of controlling variables including WTI-oil price, S&amp;P 500 index, financial market volatility, gold prices, and economic policy uncertainty of the US. To do so, ARDL estimation has been applied using daily data from December 31, 2019 till May 20, 2020. Key findings reveal that the daily reported cases of new infections have a marginal positive impact on Bitcoin price in the long term. However, the indirect impact associated with the fear of COVID-19 pandemic via financial market stress cannot be neglected. Bitcoin can also serve as a hedging tool against the economic policy uncertainty in the long term. In the short run, while the returns of economic policy uncertainty have no impact on Bitcoin price, the growth in the new cases of COVID-19 infection and returns of financial market volatility have more positive significant impact on Bitcoin returns.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5866
Author(s):  
Muhammad Khalid Anser ◽  
Qasim Raza Syed ◽  
Hooi Hooi Lean ◽  
Andrew Adewale Alola ◽  
Munir Ahmad

Since the turn of twenty first century, economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risk (GPR) have escalated across the globe. These two factors have both economic and environmental impacts. However, there exists dearth of literature that expounds the impact of EPU and GPR on environmental degradation. This study, therefore, probes the impact of EPU and GPR on ecological footprint (proxy for environmental degradation) in selected emerging economies. Cross-sectional dependence test, slope heterogeneity test, Westerlund co-integration test, fully modified least ordinary least square estimator, dynamic OLS estimator, and augmented mean group estimator are employed to conduct the robust analyses. The findings reveal that EPU and non-renewable energy consumption escalate ecological footprint, whereas GPR and renewable energy plunge ecological footprint. In addition, findings from the causality test reveal both uni-directional and bi-directional causality between a few variables. Based on the findings, we deduce several policy implications to accomplish the sustainable development goals in emerging economies.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document