[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-43103-en":3,"doc-seo-43103-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},43103,2336464648322,"Aria","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/2200025388227c56fec?_k=1778556882303663488",8,"Research & Report","Are China’s trade interests overestimated? Evidence from firms’ importing behavior and pollution emissions","Importing drives economic growth, yet it may also increase pollution emissions as firms expand production using imported intermediate or capital goods. The study builds a micro theoretical model linking importing to firms’ environmental performance, then tests predictions using China manufacturing-firm data. Results show that importing raises production scale and total emissions, indicating environmental deterioration. Meanwhile, firms increase abatement investment after importing, reducing emission intensity. The findings imply trade gains should consider environmental effects, and support green trade and stronger environmental protection.","China Economic Review 71 (2022) 101738  \nContents lists available at ScienceDirect  \nChina Economic Review  \njournal [homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco)  \n| Are China’s trade interests overestimated? Evidence from firms’importing behavior and pollution emissions☆\u003Cbr>*\u003Cbr>Ling-Yun He , Geng Huang\u003Cbr>College of Economics, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China |  |  |  |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| A R T I C L E I N F O |  | A B S T R A C T |  |\n| JEL classification: F14\u003Cbr>F18\u003Cbr>Q56\u003Cbr>Keywords: Importing Pollution emission\u003Cbr>Abatement investment Trade benefit |  | Importing is an important driving force for a country’s economic growth. While importing promotes the expansion of economic scale, does it also lead the increase of pollution emissions in production? In this paper, we establish a micro theoretical model to analyze the impacts of importing on firms’ environmental performance, and then use the data of China’s manufacturing firms for empirical tests. We show that the importing of intermediate goods or capital goods will lead to the increase of firms’ production scale, and thereby increasing their total emissions, which suggests that China’s environment will be deteriorated by importing. On the other hand, importing also has some positive environmental effects that firms will increase their abatement investment after importing intermediate goods or capital goods, thus firms’ emission intensity can be effectively reduced. Altogether, this paper provides important evidence on the impacts of importing on pollution emissions at product-level. We suggest that when analyzing China’s interests in trade, the environmental effects of trade should be taken into consideration, otherwise China’s gains from trade will be overestimated. This paper also has important implications that while developing the economy through international trade, the government should strengthen environmental protection and advocate green trade. |  |\n\n1. Introduction  \nAmong many aspects of China’s economic growth in the past few decades is simultaneous prosperity of the import development: China’s average annual growth rate of import is 14.1% from 1990 to 2018.1 Globalization has led to the substantial growth of China’s capital goods importing and intermediate goods importing. Nowadays, China is the second largest importing country in the world. There is no doubt that the rapid growth of imports has promoted China’s economy boom, but China’s value-added is relatively low because of the limitation of China’s position in Global Value Chains (Wang et al., 2020). Besides, this mode of using imported capital goods and intermediate goods in production also causes a concern, whether the expansion of economic scale after importing will lead to the deterioration of the environment.  \nTo date, some existing literature has studied the environmental effects of trade. Grossman and Krueger (1991) and Antweiler et al.(2001) analyze the impacts of trade on a country’s environment, and propose that trade can affect the environment through technical  \n☆ This project is supported by the National Key Project (Grant No. 19AZD003) and the National Major Project (Grant No. 20&ZD109) of the National Social Science Foundation of China.  \n* Corresponding author.  \nE-mail address: [lyhe@amss.ac.cn](lyhe@amss.ac.cn) (L.-Y. He).  \n1 The average annual growth rate of China’s import is calculated by using the importing data from China Statistical Yearbook.  \n[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101738](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101738)  \nReceived 31 August 2021; Received in revised form 15 December 2021; Accepted 24 December 2021 Available online 31 December 2021  \n1043-951X/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.  \neffect, factor composition effect and scale effect. Because of the lack of emission data at micro-level, the existing studies mainly analyze from macro-level and industry-level. Though recent studies start","cbCaimHS48a6swdc","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimHS48a6swdc","pdf",648910,4,1,18,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Literature and research gap\n## Research design and methods\n## Empirical results and implications","[{\"question\":\"How does importing affect firms’ pollution emissions according to the study?\",\"answer\":\"Importing intermediate or capital goods expands firms’ production scale, which increases total emissions. At the same time, importing can reduce emission intensity when firms raise abatement investment.\"},{\"question\":\"What approach does the paper use to identify the impact of importing?\",\"answer\":\"The paper first develops a micro theoretical model and then uses empirical data from China’s manufacturing firms. It applies a PSM-DID (Propensity Score Matching–Difference in Differences) framework to establish a causal relationship between importing and pollution emissions.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the paper argue that China’s trade interests may be overestimated?\",\"answer\":\"Because conventional trade evaluations may ignore environmental consequences. The paper shows that importing can increase total emissions, so trade gains should be assessed alongside environmental effects.\"}]",1783377606,45,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"are-chinas-trade-interests-overestimated-evidence-from-firms-importing-behavior-and-pollution-emissions","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,53,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,51],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/are-chinas-trade-interests-overestimated-evidence-from-firms-importing-behavior-and-pollution-emissions/43103/",{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":41,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-20","2026-07-06",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"How does importing affect firms’ pollution emissions according to the study?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Importing intermediate or capital goods expands firms’ production scale, which increases total emissions. At the same time, importing can reduce emission intensity when firms raise abatement investment.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What approach does the paper use to identify the impact of importing?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"The paper first develops a micro theoretical model and then uses empirical data from China’s manufacturing firms. It applies a PSM-DID (Propensity Score Matching–Difference in Differences) framework to establish a causal relationship between importing and pollution emissions.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"Why does the paper argue that China’s trade interests may be overestimated?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"Because conventional trade evaluations may ignore environmental consequences. 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