Search Results (1,301)

Under China’s dual-carbon goals, Green Finance Policy (GFP) and the Environmental Protection Tax Policy (ETP) are key tools for firm-level green transformation, yet their joint micro-effects remain underexplored. Using Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed firms from 2011–2022, this study treats the overlapping rollout of the Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones and the Environmental Protection Tax reform as a staggered quasi-natural experiment and applies a multi-period DID to identify their synergistic effect on Corporate Green Technology Innovation. Results show that each policy alone promotes green innovation and that their coordination further strengthens the effect. The synergy operates mainly by easing financing constraints and increasing R&D investment. The effect is stronger among firms with better resources, governance, and digitalization, and in regions with stronger institutional environments; it is also more evident in non-heavy-polluting and non-manufacturing sectors. While the policy mix raises both innovation quantity and quality, it does not significantly improve total factor productivity, indicating a “weak Porter effect.” These findings provide micro-level evidence on GFP–ETP synergy and inform the refinement of green finance, environmental tax design, and firm-level green transition policies. Full article

Community disaster resilience is increasingly guiding risk-reduction investments, but in many Southeast European settings, comparable subnational data remain scarce. This study assesses perceived community disaster resilience across Serbia by combining BRIC–DROP dimensions into a single index and analyzing differences across hazard types and sociodemographic factors. A cross-sectional household survey was conducted using multistage random sampling and the “next birthday” method for respondent selection. The final sample included 1200 adults from 22 local government units across four regions: Belgrade, Vojvodina, Šumadija & Western Serbia, and Southern & Eastern Serbia. Participants evaluated preventive measures and societal resilience for ten hazard types and considered five social dimensions: social structure, social capital, social mechanisms, social equity/diversity, and social beliefs. Descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses (including Pearson correlations, t-tests, and ANOVA), and multiple linear regression identified key predictors of preventive behavior and perceived resilience. Composite scores highlighted spatial resilience differences. Overall perceptions were generally low, mostly falling below the midpoint of the scale. Furthermore, the highest ratings for implemented preventive measures were recorded for pandemics/epidemics, storms/hail, and floods, whereas the lowest were observed for environmental pollution and droughts. Perceived resilience was highest for snowstorms, storms/hail, and pandemics/epidemics, and lowest for environmental pollution and droughts. Also, respondents reported relatively strong family ties and favorable perceptions of communication and access to basic supplies, but weak institutional capacity, particularly in budget allocation, early warning and public notification, rapid decision-making, and evacuation and shelter readiness. Regression results were statistically significant but explained only a small portion of the variance. Age and public-sector employment positively predicted perceived resilience; fear, income, and, to a lesser extent, education were negatively associated. These findings highlight the structural and psychosocial factors that shape perceptions of resilience. The BRIC–DROP composite indicates generally low perceived preparedness and resilience, especially in risk communication, evacuation and shelter readiness, and financing—the key bottlenecks in strengthening local resilience. The results recommend combining institutional reform with targeted risk communication to reduce fear and build trust, especially focusing on hazard areas with the lowest confidence, such as environmental pollution and drought. Full article

Sub-Saharan African health systems face critical funding challenges due to declining foreign aid, mounting debt and increasing disease burdens. Traditional financing mechanisms have proven inadequate, necessitating the exploration of innovative domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) strategies. This paper contributes to the health economics literature by examining the use of innovative tax models as DRM strategies for sustainable health financing in Sub-Saharan Africa, using the fiscal space for health framework. This narrative review synthesizes peer-reviewed articles, policy documents, and grey literature published between 2010 and 2025. The review identifies four promising innovative models: health taxes (tobacco, alcohol, sugar-sweetened beverages), environmental levies (pollution, carbon, plastic), digital taxation (digital services taxes, mobile money taxes, Value Added Tax (VAT) on digital services) and resource extraction taxes. The evidence demonstrates significant revenue generation potential while achieving public health and environmental co-benefits. However, critical implementation challenges persist: weak administrative capacity, poor governance quality, equity concerns and extensive informality and economic diversity. The paper recommends strengthening tax administration through digital infrastructure investment and capacity building, implementing progressive tax design with targeted exemptions, enhancing transparency and linking tax revenue to health service delivery, and tailoring reforms to country-specific contexts while learning from regional experience. Full article

Farmland management rights (FMR) mortgage lending has been advanced as a central instrument of rural credit reform in China, yet the program has consistently failed to sustain itself in the absence of direct government facilitation. Drawing on five national and provincial pilot counties in Henan Province, this study investigates the structural factors underlying this sustainability failure. We employ a sequential mixed-methods design: grounded theory analysis of in-depth interviews, policy documents, and media reports from five focal sites to inductively construct a constraint framework, followed by structural equation modeling (SEM) validation using 1055 survey responses. Our grounded theory analysis identifies three internal constraint categories—property rights insecurity, a thin secondary land market, and subject-level agricultural risk—and one external environmental constraint, which together produce a state of mutual non-recognition: neither financial institutions nor farming households regard FMR as legitimate collateral. Notably, the effect of collateral acceptance on farmer mortgage willingness is statistically insignificant, revealing that demand-side barriers are more deeply entrenched than supply-side institutional improvements alone can resolve. These findings challenge the premise that legal formalization of land rights is sufficient to generate market-driven credit activity, and call attention to the equally important role of institutional ecosystem development—encompassing land markets, appraisal capacity, supervisory infrastructure, and rural credit culture. The insights carry direct relevance for developing economies exploring land-backed agricultural credit as a rural finance strategy. Full article

Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP) serves as a pivotal indicator for balancing high-quality economic growth with increasingly stringent environmental regulations. However, empirical evidence regarding whether and how firm-level GTFP is associated with enhanced Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance in emerging markets remains limited. This study addresses this gap by examining the GTFP–ESG nexus within the macro-context of China’s “Dual-Carbon” goals (aiming for peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060). Utilizing an unbalanced panel dataset of Chinese A-share listed companies strictly covering the period from 2011 to 2022 (with 2010 data exclusively used for one-period lagged variables), we construct firm-level GTFP metrics using a non-radial SBM-DDF global Malmquist–Luenberger index—incorporating both desirable economic outputs and undesirable environmental emissions—and link them with Huazheng ESG ratings. To ensure robust empirical identification, we employ two-way fixed-effects models with lagged variables, propensity score matching (PSM), and an instrumental variable two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) approach utilizing the leave-one-out provincial average GTFP as an instrument. The results indicate a significant positive association between GTFP and overall ESG performance, as well as its three sub-pillars. Specifically, a one-standard-deviation increase in GTFP corresponds to a 0.15-standard-deviation increase in the ESG score, a marginal effect of profound economic significance, providing robust associational insights via the IV estimates. Mechanism analyses reframe traditional mediation as descriptive associational pathways, revealing that digital transformation, green innovation, and information transparency serve as significant channels, theoretically demonstrating how resource efficiency translates into social legitimacy. Heterogeneity tests show that this association is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises, firms in eastern China, and those with lower financing constraints. These findings unpack the “black box” between technical efficiency and sustainability, providing empirical support for policymakers to align corporate productivity with international disclosure standards (such as the EU’s CSRD). Full article

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) text classification is important for applications in sustainable finance. However, it remains a challenging task due to domain terminology and regulatory constraints. While transformer-based models achieve strong predictive performance, they often lead to high energy costs and provide limited interpretability. To address these limitations, we introduce ESG-Graph, a lightweight and interpretable graph-based framework for modeling ESG disclosures. In our approach, each sentence is represented as a token-level dependency graph augmented with virtual nodes initialized from a European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)-based taxonomy, enabling the addition of new ESG concepts without retraining. A multi-layer Graph Attention Network is used instead of transformer encoders, allowing grammatical structure and domain semantics to be modeled jointly. Experiments on three ESG benchmark datasets show that ESG-Graph achieves performance comparable to efficient transformer baselines while consuming up to 60× less energy and using 10× fewer parameters. Additional attribution and ablation studies suggest the method’s policy alignment, interpretability, and robustness. Full article

The present study provides a high-frequency empirical assessment of the financial performance, volatility, and market integration of thematic sustainability-oriented equity funds, focusing on clean energy and environmental innovation indices. Specifically, the study compares the financial performance of representative thematic green equity funds, such as ICLN and QCLN, and an emerging-market benchmark (ECON) with conventional developed-market indices (SPY, QQQ, GSPC, and XLE) using daily stock prices from 2010 to 2025. The analysis employs a transparent and replicable framework based on daily logarithmic and cumulative returns and incorporates the compound annual growth rate (CAGR), Sharpe and Sortino ratios, beta estimation, correlation analysis, and maximum drawdown. The research frequency is appropriate for a thorough analysis of short-term market structures and performance. The results indicate that sustainability-oriented equity indices exhibit higher volatility, deeper drawdowns, and greater sensitivity to broad market movements than conventional benchmarks. Sustainability-focused equity indices that emphasize clean energy exhibit higher market sensitivity (betas above 1) and strong correlations with traditional equity indices. Correlation and beta estimates suggest a high degree of integration with traditional equity markets, implying limited diversification benefits within an equity-only framework. Periods of relative outperformance appear to be associated with favorable policy conditions and energy market dynamics, but are not consistently sustained over the sample period. In addition, the overall results suggest that sustainability investments generate substantial environmental and social externalities. Risk-adjusted performance measures suggest weaker historical performance over the sample period relative to conventional benchmarks. These findings should be interpreted as a comparative historical assessment rather than a structural risk model. From a policy perspective, the findings suggest that stable and credible regulatory frameworks, including long-term climate policy support and investment-enabling institutions, may be important for improving the financial resilience and long-term viability of green equity instruments. From a sustainability transition perspective, the observed volatility and market dependence of sustainability-oriented equity indices may constrain their effectiveness as standalone market-based financing mechanisms without complementary institutional and policy support. Full article

This study adopts a systemic perspective to investigate how China’s carbon emissions trading pilot (CCTPP) influences the internal configuration of the firm as a complex socio-technical system. We focus on the emergent property of digital–green synergy, which captures the integration between a firm’s digital and green transformation subsystems. Employing a panel dataset of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2024 and an event-study difference-in-differences methodology, we analyze the response of this system-level property to carbon market signals. The results demonstrate that policy intervention significantly enhances systemic synergy, with an effect equivalent to 4.4 percent of the standard deviation of the synergy index. The response follows a dynamic pattern, persisting for four years before gradually diminishing, thereby revealing the system’s adaptation process. Critically, the internal structure of the firm-system moderates this response, as financing constraints, executive compensation, and firm size represent key components of governance and resource-allocation subsystems and each exerts a significant negative moderating effect. Furthermore, environmental context matters, with the policy effect concentrating on firms located in central and southern regions and within non-manufacturing and non-high-tech sectors. These findings offer a system-based understanding of how carbon pricing interacts with corporate governance to facilitate integrated socio-technical transitions. Full article

This study investigates the determinants of borrower repayment intentions in Marketplace Lending (MPL) platforms, focusing on the interplay between behavioural factors and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) awareness in the Hungarian context. A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was employed to analyze survey responses from 477 participants familiar with MPL platforms. The study integrates constructs from behavioural finance (Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Borrowing, Theory of Planned Behaviour) and ESG-related factors (Socially Responsible Investment Theory, Reciprocity Theory) to assess their influence on repayment intentions. Perceived Usefulness (PU) emerged as the strongest predictor of Repayment Intention (RI) (β = 0.554, p < 0.001), highlighting the importance of platform functionality. Socially Responsible Investment Theory (SRIT) also had a significant positive impact (β = 0.194, p < 0.01), suggesting that ethical lending practices enhance borrower accountability through reciprocity mechanisms. Conversely, Continuance Intention to Borrow (CIB) and Credit Risk Theory (CRT) showed no significant effects. This study contributes to the literature by bridging behavioural finance, credit risk theory, and ESG principles in FinTech lending, offering a novel framework for sustainable lending practices. Full article

Singapore’s AI sustainability discourse has intensified around data centre energy demand and ESG finance, yet how public attention and affect co-evolve in response to policy events remains poorly understood. This study analyses 3305 Singapore-related Reddit documents (709 original posts, 2596 comments) from 2022 to 2025 using Structural Topic Modelling (K = 15) and transformer-based emotion classification. Topic prevalence is modelled as a function of year; emotion classification is restricted to original posts as discourse-initiating units. Three focal events structure the analysis: ChatGPT-3.5’s launch (November 2022), Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0 (December 2023), and intensified ESG attention (March 2024). Results reveal pronounced event-linked topical restructuring, most notably a 345% surge in Energy Markets discourse following ChatGPT-3.5, alongside compositional shifts confirmed by ILR-transformed Welch t-tests and Euclidean distance analysis. However, the affective register of original posts remains stable and predominantly neutral throughout, with intermittent fear (mean classifier confidence 71.3%) and no evidence of sustained directional change in emotion intensities. Latent dimensional analysis identifies three affective structures, namely Pragmatic Neutrality, Evaluative Engagement, and Affective Valence, with AI energy topics clustering in the pragmatic-curiosity region. These findings suggest that Singapore’s technocratic governance culture and affective saturation from chronic environmental exposure produce a discourse in which topical reconfiguration unfolds without corresponding emotional mobilisation. Full article

Waste pollution is becoming a major health issue in many developing nations. Waste-reduction options have been investigated and proposed, but environmental culture-based initiatives have not. This study explores and advances Vietnamese families’ environmental culture related to waste management, using the Culture Tower framework and a contingent valuation method coupled with a Bayesian model (CVBM). Specifically, descriptive statistics measure environmental literacy, while CVBM determines household willingness-to-pay (WTP) and estimates WTP for waste treatment services (WTP4WTS). Based on our survey of 487 households across 11 communes and wards in Hai Phong City, local waste pollution has decreased over time, although the respondents remain concerned. Over 13% of households were dissatisfied with waste treatment services (WTSs), while approximately 50% were neutral. Most respondents (79.26%) were willing to pay for improved WTSs, with an average WTP of 60,200 VND (US$2.32) per household per month. Behavioral and perceptual factors, such as the desire for improved waste services, current perceived waste pollution, and the perception that pollution has worsened, were found to significantly influence this willingness. Our study makes three major contributions. First, it develops a novel CVBM framework that links environmental culture and an economic valuation method, strengthening green economy micro-behavioral research. Second, it advances the circular economy literature by highlighting household engagement and willingness-to-pay as key drivers of sustainable waste financing and resource-loop closure. Third, it provides empirical evidence to inform and refine Vietnam’s revised Law on Environmental Protection (2020), particularly in implementing the “polluter pays” principle, promoting waste classification at the source, and designing socially acceptable environmental financing mechanisms. Full article

The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the world’s first system to impose tariffs on the carbon emissions of imported products, commenced its transition period in October 2023 and is scheduled for full implementation in January 2026. This mechanism exerts a profound impact on the global trade landscape and corporate environmental management practices. Taking the CSI All Share Index constituent companies as a research sample, this paper empirically evaluates the impact of the CBAM transition period on the environmental scores of Chinese export enterprises utilizing the Propensity Score Matching Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) method. The results indicate that the CBAM transition period significantly inhibits the short-term environmental performance of regulated enterprises. Mechanism analysis reveals that increased financing constraints serve as a core mediating channel, wherein escalated compliance costs and compressed cash flows crowd out resources for low-carbon investments. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the negative impact is more pronounced among state-owned enterprises, firms with lower audit quality, and firms with a higher proportion of female executives. Accordingly, the study recommends establishing targeted green transition financing mechanisms, accelerating domestic carbon market reforms, and strengthening international technical harmonization to build corporate resilience against global climate governance shocks and promote sustainable growth. Full article

This study develops and validates the 5P–ESG Composite Index as a finance-oriented framework for assessing firm-level sustainable-financial performance in emerging markets. It addresses a persistent limitation in ESG measurement, namely the lack of conceptually integrated and decision-useful metrics capable of incorporating not only environmental, social, and governance dimensions, but also institutional and relational dimensions that are especially relevant in heterogeneous emerging-market settings. Conceptually, the proposed framework is grounded in the 2030 Agenda’s 5Ps (People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships) and extends conventional ESG approaches by explicitly incorporating Peace and Partnerships into firm-level assessment. Methodologically, the index is constructed through sequential indicator selection, data cleansing, winsorization, normalization, pillar-level scoring, and PCA-based endogenous weighting, while its statistical robustness is assessed through internal consistency tests and factorability diagnostics. Empirically, the framework is applied to issuers in the MSCI COLCAP universe, where it proves operationally feasible and suitable for classifying firms into relative performance groups. In addition, a benchmark comparison against a conventional ESG-3 scheme shows that the broader 5P architecture can modify issuer rankings and tercile classification. Overall, the findings support the proposed index as a transparent, auditable, and context-sensitive tool for investors and decision-makers seeking more comprehensive sustainability metrics in emerging markets. Full article

Against the backdrop of China’s “dual carbon” goals, investigating whether market-based environmental regulations can effectively induce technological upgrading is critical for achieving a sustainable low-carbon transition. This study adopts a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) approach within a two-way fixed-effects framework, supplemented by propensity score matching (PSM-DID), to identify the causal impact of the carbon emission trading (CET) pilot policy. The research utilizes a comprehensive panel dataset of A-share listed companies in heavy-polluting industries from 2010 to 2024, incorporating IPC-matched green patent application data to provide a granular assessment of corporate innovation performance. The empirical findings reveal a structural divergence: while the CET policy promotes green innovation in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), it exhibits a potential “crowding-out” effect on private enterprises, a relationship further explained by the mechanisms of carbon information disclosure and financing constraints. These results suggest that the “Porter Effect” in emerging markets is highly conditional on institutional resource endowments, implying that policymakers must complement market incentives with differentiated financial support and enhanced transparency standards to foster a more equitable innovation ecosystem. Full article

The circular economy (CE) can help businesses use resources more efficiently, but empirical evidence on CE adoption among non-European SMEs remains limited. This study examines CE practices, benefits, challenges, and future intentions in 220 Saudi Arabian SMIs. A structured survey collected data on four CE practice domains (resource efficiency, waste management, eco-design, and reverse logistics), four benefit dimensions (economic, environmental, operational, and reputational), four challenge dimensions (financial, organizational, technical, and regulatory), and six future intention items. CE adoption was moderate (M = 3.29 on a five-point scale) and balanced across all four practice domains, with resource efficiency scoring highest (M = 3.32). Benefit scores averaged 3.46, far outpacing challenges (M = 2.78). This benefit surplus of 0.68 points (on a five-point scale) indicates that Saudi SMIs perceive CE as worthwhile and view its barriers as manageable rather than prohibitive. Together, perceived benefits and perceived challenges explained 54.3% of the variance in CE adoption (R² = 0.543) in multiple regression analysis. Reducing perceived challenges may be a more effective lever for promoting CE adoption than amplifying perceived benefits, as challenges exerted a larger absolute standardised effect (β = −0.50) than perceived benefits (β = 0.39). Once perceptions were controlled, perceived benefits and challenges significantly predicted future CE intentions, but current CE practices did not. According to the Theory of Planned Behavior’s attitudinal pathway, firms without CE experience can develop strong forward-looking intentions if the business case is convincing and barriers are perceived as manageable. Technical and organizational barriers outweighed financial ones, indicating the need for capacity-building interventions over supplementary financing, unlike European findings. About 79% of respondents were neutral or positive about government-supported CE expansion. CE adoption did not differ significantly by firm size, geographic location, or ownership structure, suggesting that Vision 2030’s sustainability messaging has established a broad baseline of CE awareness across Saudi SMIs. Full article