Sustainable Growth or Growth with Pollution——An Analysis on the Sales Growth Patterns of Chinese Industrial Companies
Author(s): ZHANG Yan-lei, QIN Fang, WU Yu, Research Institute of Economics and Management SUFE, China Household Finance Survey and Research Center SUFE
Pages: 89-101
Year: 2015 Issue: 2
Journal: China Industrial Economics
Keyword: environmental pollution; sustainable growth; growth with pollution; growth pattern transformation;
Abstract: The pollution problem in China has attracted lots of worldwide attentions,and it is widely agreed that China should protect environment when developing its economy,but prior studies still have debate on the development patterns of China economy.Using a firm level dataset of China,we analyze the growth patterns of Chinese firms,specifically we test whether and how firm’s environmental performance influence its sales growth.We use the charged pollution fees as the proxy of firm’s environmental performance.We find that both sustainable growth and growth with pollution exist in China.On the one hand,the firms that are not charged pollution fees show higher sales growth rate,which implies that market values firms’ environment performance.On the other hand,for the firms that were charged pollution fees,the sales growth is positively associated with pollution fees,which indicates that high pollution firms may achieve growth by pollution.By paying pollution fees,these firms avoid their responsibilities to protect environment,and they get high sales growth at the expense of environment pollution.These findings provide references for refining the design of pollution fees collection and stimulating corporate adoption of clean production technologies.
Pages: 89-101
Year: 2015 Issue: 2
Journal: China Industrial Economics
Keyword: environmental pollution; sustainable growth; growth with pollution; growth pattern transformation;
Abstract: The pollution problem in China has attracted lots of worldwide attentions,and it is widely agreed that China should protect environment when developing its economy,but prior studies still have debate on the development patterns of China economy.Using a firm level dataset of China,we analyze the growth patterns of Chinese firms,specifically we test whether and how firm’s environmental performance influence its sales growth.We use the charged pollution fees as the proxy of firm’s environmental performance.We find that both sustainable growth and growth with pollution exist in China.On the one hand,the firms that are not charged pollution fees show higher sales growth rate,which implies that market values firms’ environment performance.On the other hand,for the firms that were charged pollution fees,the sales growth is positively associated with pollution fees,which indicates that high pollution firms may achieve growth by pollution.By paying pollution fees,these firms avoid their responsibilities to protect environment,and they get high sales growth at the expense of environment pollution.These findings provide references for refining the design of pollution fees collection and stimulating corporate adoption of clean production technologies.
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