Jie Ding, Haoming Shi, Haibin Qiu, and Keith Cheung. The Impacts of Economic Growth, Industrial Structure, Export Trade and Government Expenditure on Carbon Emissions. Dynamic Systems and Applications 29 (2020) No. 11, 3110 – 3132

https://doi.org/10.46719/dsa202029111

ABSTRACT.
With rapid development of global economy, carbon emissions have increased significantly over the past decades. Excessive carbon emissions are causing serious environmental problems ranging from global warming to regional desertification and resource depletion. There is no doubt that we urgently need a new economic development mode with low energy consumption and low pollution. In this paper, to identify what impacts carbon emissions more significantly, we investigate the interactions among the four factors of economic development, industrial structure, international trade and government expenditure for the first time. Employing the production model of ecological improvement regions and the method of factor analysis, we reveal the interactive relationships among the four factors based on empirical tests. Our main research results include the followings. First, the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions has weakened over time, but not completely decoupled, as economies have shifted towards high-quality development. In other words, the U-shaped EKC curve is approaching its inflection point. Second, upgrading the industrial structure and improving the trade structure can effectively curb carbon emissions. Third, government tax and spending discounts can further encourage companies to upgrade production technologies and reduce carbon emissions. Finally, we provide policy insights on how developing countries and regions can achieve the dual goals of economic development and environmental protection.

Keywords: Carbon emissions; Environmental Protection, Economic growth; Industrial structure; Export trade.