贸易开放会影响城市二氧化碳排放吗?——以自由贸易试验区为例

Study on the Impact of Trade Opening on Urban CO2 Emissions——Taking the Example of Free Trade Zones

开放自由贸易试验区是我国培育贸易新业态、新模式,实现对外经济高质量发展的重要政策实践。本文基于2000-2020年中国264个地级市的面板数据,构建多期双重差分模型来评估,自由贸易试验区作为我国贸易开放措施的一部分对地级市二氧化碳排放量的影响。结果表明:自由贸易试验区的开放显著地减少了该地区二氧化碳排放。并且,贸易开放通过改善当地产业结构和推动技术进步来实现减排作用。此外,由于经济发展水平与产业结构的差异,导致在不同地级市中自由贸易试验区的减排效果存在异质性。研究结果进一步强调了推进自由贸易试验区建设的重要性,丰富了目前国内贸易在环境效应领域的研究。

Introducing Free Trade Zones is an important policy practice for China to cultivate new trade forms and modes and realize high-quality development of foreign economy.Based on the panel data of 264 prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2020,this paper constructs a Multi-period Difference-in-Difference method to assess the impact of the Pilot Free Trade Zones as part of China's trade liberalization measures on CO2 emissions in prefecture-level cities.The results show that the opening of the Pi⁃lot Free Trade Zones significantly reduces regional CO2 emissions.Moreover,trade open⁃ing realizes the emission reduction effect by improving the local industrial structure and promoting technological progress.In addition,the differences in economic development level and industrial structure lead to heterogeneity in the emission reduction effect of the Free Trade Zones in different prefecture-level cities.The findings further emphasize the importance of promoting the construction of pilot free trade zones and enrich the current research on the environmental effects of domestic trade.