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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The Impact of Decentralization on Carbon
Productivity in Chinese Manufacturing:
The Perspective of Industrial Policy
1
School of Internet Economics and Business, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
Submission date: 2024-03-20
Final revision date: 2024-04-26
Acceptance date: 2024-05-12
Online publication date: 2024-09-06
Publication date: 2025-05-09
Corresponding author
Li Song
School of Internet Economics and Business, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
School of Internet Economics and Business, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2025;34(4):4263-4278
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
With the increasing severity of global climate change, realizing the win-win situation between
industrial development and carbon reduction through localized policy formulation has become an
important goal for developing countries, which is especially vital for large economies that require
decentralized systems. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the relationship between Chinese-style
decentralization, industrial policy, and manufacturing carbon productivity to shed light on promoting
low-carbon transformation by fine-tuning the decentralizing system. This study measures lowcarbon
total factor productivity based on the SBM-GML method and sectoral manufacturing data of
30 provinces in China from 1997 to 2019, and found that fiscal decentralization has a positive effect
on industrial policy in promoting manufacturing low-carbon transformation, especially in promoting
the implementation effect of the local government industrial policies, but has a limited effect on industrial
policies implemented by the central government alone. However, environmental decentralization has
an impeding effect on the role of industrial policy in increasing carbon productivity, which is mainly
reflected in the central government’s industrial policy. Furthermore, energy structure and green
innovation are two important channels affecting carbon productivity. The findings of this paper provide
new evidence for optimizing the decentralization system and the positioning of industrial policy between
the central and local levels to promote industrial transformation and carbon emission reductions.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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| eISSN: | 2083-5906 |
| ISSN: | 1230-1485 |
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