A Study On Panel Quantile Regression Of The Impact Of Financial Development And Urbanization On Carbon Emissions

In recent years,extreme climate phenomena have occurred frequently around the world,and the problems of climate change and global warming have attracted wide attention.Excessive carbon emissions lead to greenhouse effects,which is considered to be the main culprit of environmental degradation,frequent extreme climate and natural disasters.The Paris Agreement,adopted at the Paris Climate Change Conference on December 12,2015 and signed in New York on April 22,2016,having laid the foundation for subsequent efforts to tackle international climate change,,demonstrating the courage and determination of the international community to jointly address climate change.Therefore,it is of practical significance to study the main influencing factors of carbon emissions.The paper builds a panel quantile regression model to analyze the effects of financial development level and urbanization on carbon emissions,and the indirect mechanism of the two on carbon emissions.The idea of this paper is from mechanism analysis to model building and then to empirical research.To be specific,firstly,the impact mechanism of financial development and urbanization on carbon emission is analyzed respectively.Then,according to the environmental pressure control model and the theory of quantile regression,the empirical model is constructed for analysis.Finally,taking the BRICS economies as the research object,this paper selects the annual data from 1993 to 2017 for empirical analysis.The dependent variable is carbon emissions,besides to the financial development and urbanization,some relevant control variables are also selected as independent variables.In the empirical study,the statistical characteristics of the sample data are first analyzed,then the stationary and co-integration tests are conducted.Next,the parameters are estimated,further estimating the indirect effects of financial development and urbanization on carbon emissions,and analyzing the empirical results.The empirical results show that the effects of independent variables on dependent variables are heterogeneous at different quantile levels.Compared with the results of mean regression,the results of quantile regression are more abundant and comprehensive.In BRICS economies,the improvement of financial development level will reduce carbon emissions,which is significant only in middle-and high-emission countries.The increasing urbanization level also inhibits carbon emissions,and the impact is significant in all countries.BRICS economies can accelerate urbanization to reduce carbon emissions.It must be noted,however,that the increasing energy use will significantly increase carbon emissions,and the impact isgreatest among all factors considered.Therefore,in the process of financial development and urbanization,BRICS economies should increase the utilization of clean energy and formulate corresponding energy policies according to local conditions.Foreign direct investment in lowand medium-emission countries will significantly promote carbon emissions.In addition,the Environmental Kuznets Hypothesis is existent in BRICS economies.