IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i23p16116-d991605.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Comprehensive Impact of Outward Foreign Direct Investment on China’s Carbon Emissions

Author

Listed:
  • Pengfei Cheng

    (Department of International Trade, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju 54896, Republic of Korea)

  • Xingang Huan

    (Grain Economics Research Center, School of Economics and Trade, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou 450001, China)

  • Baekryul Choi

    (Department of International Trade, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju 54896, Republic of Korea)

Abstract

Outward foreign direct investment (OFDI), as an important carrier of global technology and industrial transfer, will significantly impact the home country’s environment. Therefore, using data from 30 Chinese provinces gathered between 2004 and 2019, we empirically analyze the impact of OFDI on China’s carbon emissions across two dimensions: total carbon emissions and carbon emission efficiency. In addition, when the previous studies explored the impact of OFDI on carbon emissions, there were few studies on the synergistic emission reduction effect of OFDI. Therefore, based on sorting out previous research, we incorporated OFDI, technological progress, industrial structure upgrading, international trade, and carbon emissions into the same analytical framework. Based on the classic fixed model, we introduce the interaction term further to explore the synergistic emission reduction effect of OFDI. Our model suggests that OFDI has increased total carbon emissions, but the associated reverse technology spillover has improved carbon emission efficiency. We also found a synergistic emission reduction effect between OFDI and technological progress, international trade, and industrial structure upgrading. This synergistic effect suppresses the growth of total carbon emissions and improves carbon emissions efficiency. Robustness testing confirmed these results. This research also provides a relatively novel perspective for China to achieve the goals of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality”.

Suggested Citation

  • Pengfei Cheng & Xingang Huan & Baekryul Choi, 2022. "The Comprehensive Impact of Outward Foreign Direct Investment on China’s Carbon Emissions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-16, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:23:p:16116-:d:991605
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/16116/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/16116/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wei-Feng Gong & Zhen-Yue Fan & Chuan-Hui Wang & Li-Ping Wang & Wen-Wen Li, 2022. "Spatial Spillover Effect of Carbon Emissions and Its Influencing Factors in the Yellow River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Mr. Ali J Al-Sadiq, 2013. "Outward Foreign Direct Investment and Domestic Investment: The Case of Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2013/052, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Yun Tong & Rui Zhang & Biao He, 2022. "The Carbon Emission Reduction Effect of Tourism Economy and Its Formation Mechanism: An Empirical Study of China’s 92 Tourism-Dependent Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-21, February.
    4. Gaoweijia Wang & Shanshan Li & Li Yang, 2022. "Research on the Pathway of Green Financial System to Implement the Realization of China’s Carbon Neutrality Target," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-18, February.
    5. Sumei Luo & Yixiang Shi & Yongkun Sun & Zhiqi Zhao & Guangyou Zhou, 2021. "Can FDI and ODI two-way flows improve the quality of economic growth? Empirical Evidence from China," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(44), pages 5028-5050, September.
    6. Yang Gao & Sang-Bing Tsai & Xingqun Xue & Tingzhen Ren & Xiaomin Du & Quan Chen & Jiangtao Wang, 2018. "An Empirical Study on Green Innovation Efficiency in the Green Institutional Environment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-13, March.
    7. Guiliang Tian & Suwan Yu & Zheng Wu & Qing Xia, 2022. "Study on the Emission Reduction Effect and Spatial Difference of Carbon Emission Trading Policy in China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-20, March.
    8. Fang Chen & Tao Zhao & Di Wang, 2022. "Research on China Cities’ Total Factor Productivity of Carbon Emission: Based on Decoupling Effect," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-16, February.
    9. Yize Yang & Xiujian Wei & Jie Wei & Xiang Gao, 2022. "Industrial Structure Upgrading, Green Total Factor Productivity and Carbon Emissions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-16, January.
    10. Hanif, Imran & Faraz Raza, Syed Muhammad & Gago-de-Santos, Pilar & Abbas, Qaiser, 2019. "Fossil fuels, foreign direct investment, and economic growth have triggered CO2 emissions in emerging Asian economies: Some empirical evidence," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 493-501.
    11. Li, Jian & Strange, Roger & Ning, Lutao & Sutherland, Dylan, 2016. "Outward foreign direct investment and domestic innovation performance: Evidence from China," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 1010-1019.
    12. Ming Yi & Mengqi Gong & Ting Wu & Yue Wang, 2018. "Nonlinear Effects of Urbanization and Outward Foreign Direct Investment on Carbon Emissions in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-11, November.
    13. Feifei Tan & Hao Wan & Xiangjun Jiang & Zhiyuan Niu, 2021. "The Impact of Outward Foreign Direct Investment on Carbon Emission toward China’s Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Wang, Cassandra C. & Wu, Aiqi, 2016. "Geographical FDI knowledge spillover and innovation of indigenous firms in China," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 895-906.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Scalamonti, Francesco, 2024. "The foreign investments-growth nexus in underdeveloped countries: the state-of-art of research analysing a selected and recent empirical literature (2020-2022)," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tong, Tong & Chen, Xiaoyue & Singh, Tarlok & Li, Bin, 2022. "Corporate governance and the outward foreign direct investment: Firm-level evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 962-980.
    2. Mengmeng Wang & Shufeng Simon Xiao & Sang Hyun Han, 2023. "Exploring the double-edged sword effect of outward FDI spillovers on domestic firms’ productivity in an emerging market," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(1), pages 275-299, February.
    3. Shangram Bahadur Shah & Jirakiattikul Sopin & Kua-Anan Techato & Bibek Kumar Mudbhari, 2023. "A Systematic Review on Nexus Between Green Finance and Climate Change: Evidence from China and India," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(4), pages 599-613, July.
    4. Bingtao Qin & Yulu Gai & Liming Ge & Pengbo Sun & Yongwei Yu & Yi Zheng, 2022. "FDI, Technology Spillovers, and Green Innovation: Theoretical Analysis and Evidence from China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-25, October.
    5. Md. Monirul Islam & Mohammad Tareque & Abu N. M. Wahid & Md. Mahmudul Alam & Kazi Sohag, 2022. "Do the Inward and Outward Foreign Direct Investments Spur Domestic Investment in Bangladesh? A Counterfactual Analysis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-22, December.
    6. Ruilin Yang & Harald Bathelt, 2022. "China's outward investment activity: Ambiguous findings in the literature and empirical trends in greenfield investments," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 313-341, March.
    7. Feng, Wei & Li, Jiajia, 2021. "International technology spillovers and innovation quality: Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 289-308.
    8. Jiang, Mingrui & Luo, Sumei & Zhou, Guangyou, 2020. "Financial development, OFDI spillovers and upgrading of industrial structure," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    9. Yan Liu & Xuan Wang, 2023. "The impact of foreign direct investment on innovation at domestic firms: Evidence from the deregulation of foreign investment in China," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(2), pages 676-718, May.
    10. Chuan Tian & Guohui Feng & Huanyu Li, 2023. "Empirical Study on the Impact of Urbanization and Carbon Emissions under the Dual-Carbon Framework Based on Coupling and Coordination," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-20, March.
    11. Liu, Yaping & Sadiq, Farah & Ali, Wajahat & Kumail, Tafazal, 2022. "Does tourism development, energy consumption, trade openness and economic growth matters for ecological footprint: Testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve and pollution haven hypothesis for Pakistan," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    12. Duan, Yunlong & Liu, Shuling & Cheng, Hao & Chin, Tachia & Luo, Xuan, 2021. "The moderating effect of absorptive capacity on transnational knowledge spillover and the innovation quality of high-tech industries in host countries: Evidence from the Chinese manufacturing industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    13. Li, Linjie & Liu, Xiaming & Yuan, Dong & Yu, Miaojie, 2017. "Does outward FDI generate higher productivity for emerging economy MNEs? – Micro-level evidence from Chinese manufacturing firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 839-854.
    14. Ke Liu & Yurong Qiao & Qian Zhou, 2021. "Analysis of China’s Industrial Green Development Efficiency and Driving Factors: Research Based on MGWR," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-22, April.
    15. Tomiwa Sunday Adebayo & Abraham Ayobamiji Awosusi & Seun Damola Oladipupo & Ephraim Bonah Agyekum & Arunkumar Jayakumar & Nallapaneni Manoj Kumar, 2021. "Dominance of Fossil Fuels in Japan’s National Energy Mix and Implications for Environmental Sustainability," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-20, July.
    16. Hayat Khan & Liu Weili & Itbar Khan, 2022. "Environmental innovation, trade openness and quality institutions: an integrated investigation about environmental sustainability," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 3832-3862, March.
    17. Wilman-Santiago Ochoa-Moreno & Byron Alejandro Quito & Carlos Andrés Moreno-Hurtado, 2021. "Foreign Direct Investment and Environmental Quality: Revisiting the EKC in Latin American Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-18, November.
    18. Guangxiong Mao & Wei Jin & Ying Zhu & Yanjun Mao & Wei-Ling Hsu & Hsin-Lung Liu, 2021. "Environmental Pollution Effects of Regional Industrial Transfer Illustrated with Jiangsu, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-19, November.
    19. Jie Zhang & Majed Alharthi & Qaiser Abbas & Weiqing Li & Muhammad Mohsin & Khan Jamal & Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary, 2020. "Reassessing the Environmental Kuznets Curve in Relation to Energy Efficiency and Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-21, October.
    20. Casson, Mark & Wadeson, Nigel, 2018. "Emerging market multinationals and internalisation theory," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1150-1160.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:23:p:16116-:d:991605. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.