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Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy
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Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 28887

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Chi Keung Marco Lau

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Accountancy, Finance, and Economics Huddersfield Business School, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK
Interests: financial economics behavioural finance and economics information transmission in financial market financial econometrics regional economics energy economics business environments and innovation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Giray Gozgor

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey
Interests: international economics and political economy; international finance; applied econometrics; energy economics and climate change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Global climate change is among the leading problems of the globe in the twenty-first century. The primary cause of climate change is attributed to environmental degradation and global warming. Meanwhile, the number of empirical studies on the determinants of environmental degradation has increased, especially since the early 2010s. On the other hand, the global financial markets have collapsed during the Financial Crisis of 2008–2009, and this led to the economic downturn in the global economy, which has not fully been explained by traditional sources of business cycle fluctuations. In the late 2010s, the global economy also witnessed a rise in economic policy uncertainty due to the effects of Brexit, deceleration of growth in the Chinese economy, and President Trump's trade policy.

However, there is a lack of evidence around the effects of economic and policy uncertainty on environmental indicators. A higher level of economic and policy uncertainty can decrease new investments, and this will slow down the transformation to the green economy and renewable energy both in developing economies and advanced countries. Therefore, the subject is open to new research questions. Further, there is also almost no consensus among decision-makers (governments and other public institutions) on which environmental policies should be implemented during times of economic policy uncertainty.

The main objective of this Special Issue is to try to provide different aspects and consequences of economic policy uncertainty on indicators for the sustainability of the green economy, such as carbon dioxide emissions, energy-efficient investments, renewable energy, and so on.

Dr. Chi Keung Marco Lau
Prof. Dr. Giray Gozgor
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainability
  • green economy
  • climate change
  • environmental degradation
  • economic policy uncertainty
  • uncertainty shocks

Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1721 KiB  
Article
The Heterogeneity Research of the Impact of EPU on Environmental Pollution: Empirical Evidence Based on 15 Countries
by Ying Chen, Xiaoqian Shen and Li Wang
Sustainability 2021, 13(8), 4166; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084166 - 8 Apr 2021
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 2261
Abstract
While economic growth has been the main goal of countries around the world, environmental problems such as air pollution have also arisen. Since the increase in economic uncertainty is limiting production capacity and consumers’ marginal propensity to consume, which reduces CO2 emissions, [...] Read more.
While economic growth has been the main goal of countries around the world, environmental problems such as air pollution have also arisen. Since the increase in economic uncertainty is limiting production capacity and consumers’ marginal propensity to consume, which reduces CO2 emissions, economic policy uncertainty has become one of the most important factors affecting CO2 emissions. COVID-19 has demonstrated that economic policy uncertainty reduces the enthusiasm of market participants, which, in turn, reduces energy demand and CO2 emissions. In order to further study the impact of economic policy uncertainty on air pollution, this study uses a panel model to empirically test the data for a sample of 15 countries covering the period from 1997 to 2019. According to the empirical results, we find that the economic policy uncertainty has a significant negative impact on per capita CO2 emissions. That is, the higher the uncertainty of economic policy, the lower the per capita CO2 emissions of countries. What’s more, this negative effect is larger in emerging market countries than in advanced countries. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
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9 pages, 256 KiB  
Article
Preferences and Tourism Development under Uncertainty: An Empirical Study
by Zhou Lu, Haiwei Li, Chi Keung Marco Lau and Aliyu Buhari Isah
Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2534; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052534 - 26 Feb 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2241
Abstract
Using the Global Preferences Survey dataset, this paper examines the effects of six measures of preferences (altruism, negative reciprocity, patience, positive reciprocity, risk-taking, and trust) on the per capita international tourist arrivals and the per capita incoming tourist receipts. The data focus on [...] Read more.
Using the Global Preferences Survey dataset, this paper examines the effects of six measures of preferences (altruism, negative reciprocity, patience, positive reciprocity, risk-taking, and trust) on the per capita international tourist arrivals and the per capita incoming tourist receipts. The data focus on 74 countries for the period from 1995 to 2019. The paper finds that citizens’ trust is positively related to tourism development, and its impact is statistically significant. This evidence indicates that a country with a higher level of trust in other nations’ people attracts more tourists and generates higher tourism receipts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
16 pages, 272 KiB  
Article
Economic Policy Uncertainty, Outward Foreign Direct Investments, and Green Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Firm-Level Data in China
by Yuegang Song, Feng Hao, Xiazhen Hao and Giray Gozgor
Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2339; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042339 - 22 Feb 2021
Cited by 42 | Viewed by 4101
Abstract
This paper uses Chinese firm-level data to investigate the effect of China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on green total factor productivity (GTFP) under economic policy uncertainties (EPU). We found a significant positive impact of OFDI on GTFP. Moreover, an increase in EPU [...] Read more.
This paper uses Chinese firm-level data to investigate the effect of China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on green total factor productivity (GTFP) under economic policy uncertainties (EPU). We found a significant positive impact of OFDI on GTFP. Moreover, an increase in EPU was shown to decrease GTFP. We also found that OFDI positively contributes to GTFP for private firms and foreign-invested firms in China. Technology-seeking OFDI contributes greater to GTFP than resource-seeking OFDI and market-seeking OFDI. These results remain robust when considering OFDI from firms in Central and East China as well as Western China. The findings are also robust with green labor productivity (GLP) substituting for GTFP using different econometric techniques. We also discuss potential implications in enhancing green innovation performance and sustainable industrial development in China. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
14 pages, 485 KiB  
Article
Fiscal Decentralization, Urban-Rural Income Gap, and Tourism
by Xiaohua Chen, Xinyi Zhang, Yuhua Song, Xueping Liang, Liangjun Wang and Yina Geng
Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10398; https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410398 - 12 Dec 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2757
Abstract
The reform of China’s tax-sharing system in 1994 has not only had a profound heterogeneous impact on the control level of fiscal resources by local government but also might exert a negative effect on the sustainable development of tourism. Based on this hypothesis, [...] Read more.
The reform of China’s tax-sharing system in 1994 has not only had a profound heterogeneous impact on the control level of fiscal resources by local government but also might exert a negative effect on the sustainable development of tourism. Based on this hypothesis, this paper uses 1993–2018 data from 31 Chinese provinces to examine the dynamic relationship between China’s fiscal decentralization, income gap, urbanization, and tourism growth using a panel co-integration model. Our results show that there is a stable co-integration relationship between fiscal decentralization, income gap, and tourism growth. In general, the impact of fiscal decentralization and income gap on tourism development varies across regions. However, in most provinces, urbanization helps the development of tourism. Urbanization and fiscal decentralization also help reduce the income gap. This shows that the inter-regional government competition promotes not only the growth of tourism but also income equality. To achieve the sustainable development of tourism, China should not only take the advantage of local governments’ incentives for economic growth but also handle the income gap problem considering local conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
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11 pages, 313 KiB  
Article
Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Affect CO2 Emissions? Empirical Evidence from the United States
by Qing Wang, Kefeng Xiao and Zhou Lu
Sustainability 2020, 12(21), 9108; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12219108 - 2 Nov 2020
Cited by 73 | Viewed by 3344
Abstract
This paper aims to examine the effects of economic policy uncertainty (measured by the World Uncertainty Index—WUI) on the level of CO2 emissions in the United States for the period from 1960 to 2016. For this purpose, we consider the unit root [...] Read more.
This paper aims to examine the effects of economic policy uncertainty (measured by the World Uncertainty Index—WUI) on the level of CO2 emissions in the United States for the period from 1960 to 2016. For this purpose, we consider the unit root test with structural breaks and the autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) model. We find that the per capita income promotes CO2 emissions in the long run. Similarly, the WUI measures are positively associated with CO2 emissions in the long run. Energy prices negatively affect CO2 emissions both in the short run and the long run. Possible implications of climate change are also discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
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24 pages, 2596 KiB  
Article
Research on the Time-Varying Impact of Economic Policy Uncertainty on Crude Oil Price Fluctuation
by Yanhong Feng, Dilong Xu, Pierre Failler and Tinghui Li
Sustainability 2020, 12(16), 6523; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166523 - 12 Aug 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 2879
Abstract
Due to multiple properties, the international crude oil price is influenced by various and complex interrelated factors from different determinants in different periods. However, the previous studies on crude oil price fluctuation with economic policy uncertainty (EPU) haven’t taken a wider range of [...] Read more.
Due to multiple properties, the international crude oil price is influenced by various and complex interrelated factors from different determinants in different periods. However, the previous studies on crude oil price fluctuation with economic policy uncertainty (EPU) haven’t taken a wider range of volatility sources into their analysis frameworks. In this paper, the time-varying parameter factor-augmented vector autoregressive (TVP-FAVAR) model is introduced in order to avoid important information loss, as well as capture the time-varying impact on crude oil price fluctuation by EPU. Furthermore, the differences on crude oil fluctuations from net-oil exporting and net-oil importing country’s EPU are also elaborated. Here are three findings as follows. First, the impacts of global EPU on the crude oil price volatility show time-varying characteristics both in time duration and time-points. Second, the instantaneous impacts of global EPU on the price volatility of crude oil are directly relevant to major events, and the impacts are different in event types as well. Third, the time-varying characteristics depicting the impacts of EPU in countries who are net-oil exporter and net-oil importer on price volatility of crude oil show heterogeneity in fluctuation range, fluctuation intensity, and stage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
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21 pages, 1168 KiB  
Article
Identifying the Influencing Factors on Investors’ Investment Behavior: An Empirical Study Focusing on the Chinese P2P Lending Market
by Xi Yang, Wenjuan Fan and Shanlin Yang
Sustainability 2020, 12(13), 5345; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135345 - 1 Jul 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3269
Abstract
Our study explores the factors influencing investors’ behavior in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market in China, and the relationships among them from the perspective of investors. The primary component analysis method was used to divide the P2P lending platforms into five categories. Then, [...] Read more.
Our study explores the factors influencing investors’ behavior in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market in China, and the relationships among them from the perspective of investors. The primary component analysis method was used to divide the P2P lending platforms into five categories. Then, a structural equation model was applied to analyze the interrelationship. Our results show that more exceptional operating ability, profitability, and security of the platform help to improve investor’s investment behavior. Operation ability is the most significant influencing factor, which also influences other factors to different degrees. After the analysis of the results, we found that the security degree of P2P lending platforms in China differs, and the risk due to the lack of bank depository for platforms is the most serious. In terms of the background, investors are less interested in the state-owned platforms compared to the bank- or listed-company-owned platforms, although the background strength of the state-owned platforms is more powerful. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
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16 pages, 281 KiB  
Article
The Impact of Green Credit Policy on Technological Innovation of Firms in Pollution-Intensive Industries: Evidence from China
by Shixian Ling, Guosheng Han, Dong An, William Cannon Hunter and Hui Li
Sustainability 2020, 12(11), 4493; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114493 - 1 Jun 2020
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 4301
Abstract
How to promote technological innovation with green finance policy has been a focal topic in the global green finance field in recent years. Using the difference-in-difference approach model, this paper investigated the impact of the Green Credit Guidance (GCG) policy implemented by the [...] Read more.
How to promote technological innovation with green finance policy has been a focal topic in the global green finance field in recent years. Using the difference-in-difference approach model, this paper investigated the impact of the Green Credit Guidance (GCG) policy implemented by the Chinese government in 2012 on the technological innovation of firms in pollution-intensive industries. The empirical results indicated that GCG had a negative impact, not only on research and development (R&D) input, but also on innovation output, and the impacts on firms with different property rights and different scales were consistent. Further research showed that GCG reduced the long-term debt of firms in pollution-intensive industries, and then significantly decreased the R&D input and innovation output; that is, long-term debt is a mediator in GCG and technology innovation. The results revealed that GCG fails to promote the technological innovation of firms in pollution-intensive industries. This paper suggests that China’s green credit policy should pay more attention to the technological innovation, transformation, and upgrading of firms in pollution-intensive industries. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
22 pages, 3423 KiB  
Article
Research on Self-Organizing Evolution Level of China’s Photovoltaic Industry Chain System
by Yiping Liu, Jian Chen and Lingjun Wang
Sustainability 2020, 12(5), 1792; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051792 - 27 Feb 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2332
Abstract
According to the self-organizing theory, we first constructed an index system of the self-organizing evolution level of China’s photovoltaic (PV) industry chain system from two aspects: of development level and synergy level. Furthermore, according to the relevant data of China’s PV industry, the [...] Read more.
According to the self-organizing theory, we first constructed an index system of the self-organizing evolution level of China’s photovoltaic (PV) industry chain system from two aspects: of development level and synergy level. Furthermore, according to the relevant data of China’s PV industry, the self-organizing evolution level of the system from 2008 to 2017 was measured and evaluated by using the system evolution level measurement model and cloud model. Finally, the GM (1, 1) model was used to predict the self-organizing evolution level of the system from 2018 to 2022. The results show that the overall self-organizing evolution level of China’s PV industry chain system shows a rising trend in the ten years from 2008 to 2017, gradually transitioning from a low evolution level to a relatively low evolution level, with the evolution level declining in 2012 and 2015. It is expected that the self-organizing evolution level will continue to maintain a stable and orderly growth trend in the next five years, entering a medium evolution level stage from 2021. If the current evolution speed can be maintained, it is expected to reach a self-organizing evolution state in the next 20 years or so. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Policy Uncertainty and Sustainability of the Green Economy)
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