Stepping up to the Mark? Firms’ Export Activity and Environmental Innovation in 14 European Countries

7th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Aoife Hanley, Finn Ole Semrau (Industry and Innovation, forthcoming)

We investigate the ability of exports to trigger the adoption of environmental innovation (EI) in firms, shedding light on the determinants of convergence in environmental standards for Europe’s catch-up economies. To analyse this question empirically, we measure the latter as the 1) probability a firm adopts EI and the 2) breadth of EI adoption in firms[...]

Low-carbon Power Technologies and the Stability of International Climate Cooperation

7th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Vicki Duscha, Jan Kersting, Sonja Peterson, Joachim Schleich, Matthias Weitzel (Climate Change Economics, 2021,12(4): 2150013)

This paper explores the effects of the technological development of key low-carbon power technologies (photovoltaic (PV), wind, and carbon capture and storage (CCS)) on the stability of global climate cooperation under several assumptions about climate-related damage[...]

Climate policies after Paris: Pledge, Trade and Recycle: Insights from the 36th Energy Modeling Forum Study (EMF36)

7th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Christoph Böhringer, Sonja Peterson, Thomas F. Rutherford, Jan Schneider, Malte Winkler (Energy Economics, 2021, 103: 105471)

This article summarizes insights from the 36th Energy Modeling Forum study (EMF36) on the magnitude and distribution of economic adjustment costs of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Under the Paris Agreement, countries have committed to emission reduction targets – so-called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – in order to combat global warming[...]

The Blue Carbon Wealth of Nations

7th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Christine Bertram, Martin Quaas, Thorsten B. H. Reusch, Athanasios T. Vafeidis, Claudia Wolff, Wilfried Rickels (Nature Climate Change, 2021, 11: 704–709)

Carbon sequestration and storage in mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows is an essential coastal ‘blue carbon’ ecosystem service for climate change mitigation. Here we offer a comprehensive, global and spatially explicit economic assessment of carbon sequestration and storage in three coastal ecosystem types at the global and national levels[...]

Social Science Research to Inform Solar Geoengineering

7th March 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Joseph E. Aldy, Tyler Felgenhauer, William A. Pizer, Massimo Tavoni, Mariia Belaia, Mark E. Borsuk, Arunabha Ghosh, Garth Heutel, Daniel Heyen, Joshua Horton, David Keith, Christine Merk, Juan Moreno-Cruz, Jesse L. Reynolds, Katharine Ricke, Wilfried Rickels, Soheil Shayegh, Wake Smith, Simone Tilmes, Gernot Wagner, Jonathan B. Wiener (Science, 2021, 374(6569): 815–818)

As the prospect of average global warming exceeding 1.5°C becomes increasingly likely, interest in supplementing mitigation and adaptation with solar geoengineering (SG) responses will almost certainly rise. For example stratospheric aerosol injection to cool the planet could offset some of the warming for a given accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases (1)[...]

Does the Belt and Road Initiative stimulate Chinese Exports? Evidence from Micro Data

25th February 2022
KCG Secretary
Authors: Holger Görg, Haiou Mao (The World Economy, forthcoming)

This paper evaluates firms’ exporting responses to BRI and considers their heterogeneity in ownership types, product types, regional origin and trade mode. This is done by analyzing firm-product-destination level customs data from 2008 to 2016. Our empirical results show that aggregate export behavior increased significantly after BRI[...]

KCG Policy Paper No. 8: China’s Economic Transformation and Poverty Reduction over the Years: An Overview

14th February 2022
KCG Secretary
Policy Papers
Policy Papers
Authors: Maria Ana Lugo, Martin Raiser, Ruslan Yemtsov

The present document examines the role of social and economic transformation in the process of poverty reduction in China. China’s economic growth and poverty reduction over the past 40 years are historically unprecedented both in speed and scale. Between 1978 and 2018 China’s economy grew at an annual rate of 9.5 percent, twice as fast as the other developing regions of the World[...]

Kiel Institute Research Seminar by Finn Ole Semrau on Firms’ Global Value Chain Positioning and Clean Production

17th January 2022
KCG Secretary
News
News
How to improve sustainability in global value chains (GVCs) is a key question that has been intensively addressed not only in coordinated multinational efforts like G20 but also by national policy engagement like Germany’s Supply Chain Law. Many firms and actors have been involved in GVCs to produce goods and services for the world demand. They have been responsible for specific tasks along the GVCs. Due to firms’ different GVC positions, they may be confronted with challenges to different extents while being required to improve, for example, their environmental performance to help achieve higher environmental sustainability in GVCs[...]

Görg Gave an Interview on the Impact of China’s 20-year WTO Membership and on China-Germany Economic Relations

13th January 2022
KCG Secretary
Public Contributions
Public Contributions
In late 2021, China celebrated the 20th anniversary of its WTO membership. On December 11, 2001 China became the 143rd member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) after a long-lasting negotiation process and large-scale economic reforms to fulfil the accession requirements. Through China’s WTO accession, it became – formally and institutionally – an important part of the multilateral trading system[...]