Research On The Impact Of Subsidy Policies On The Development Of Urban Green Buildings

Energy shortages and environmental degradation have become two of most urgent issues today.Whether it is energy consumption or environmental pollution caused by greenhouse gas emissions,construction industry plays an important role in world environmental issues.As long as the urbanization accelerates,the proportion of energy consumption in construction industry increases.Meanwhile,residential building is a major focus of the whole industry.Therefore,a sustainable developing pattern is a crucial need and necessary trend in today's construction industry.At present,various standards for green buildings around the world are increasing rapidly.As for our country,China is also striving to implement “the evaluation and certification of green building”.In the case of the government's taking leading role in developing green building,does subsidy policies have a positive impact on the development? How effective are those policies? What factors are effective besides those polices? Based on the above background,this study considers the development of green buildings in a political perspective and explores the impact of the implementation of subsidy policies on it.It has certain academic value for the research on green buildings and important practical significance for the development of the whole industry.This paper affirms the role of subsidy policy played in the development of green buildings based on existing relevant literature and economic theories.This paper analyzes the market failures in the green building market and explains the transmission mechanism of subsidy policies to green building development from supply and demand sides.In this regard,this paper analyzes and contrasts the so-far development of green buildings and related policies in China.One important subsidy policy “interim procedures on the administration of subsidy funds for energy-saving renovation of existing residential buildings in hot-summer and cold-winter zone” is selected.The residential green buildings in China are divided into three categories by qualities.Based on the city-level panel data from 2008 to 2016,this paper examines the impact of selected subsidy policy on the development of green building through difference in difference method.Then,this paper uses location and climatic factors as stability tests to study the impact of different factors on the development.Finally,through marginal analysis,this paper examines the marginal effect of the subsidy policy on the development in various years.The empirical research of the paper shows that the subsidy policy does promote the development of green buildings,but the impact pattern is different due to location and quality difference of green buildings.In general,the subsidy policy is more effective in promoting low-quality green buildings than high-quality ones.Compared with western region,subsidy policy can be more useful in central and eastern regions,where the green building markets are more developed.Only low-quality green buildings are evidently affected by the policy in western region.When comparing northern and southern regions,it is found that southern region is more susceptible to policies and prone to high-quality green buildings.In the meantime,it is found that in addition to government policies,regional economic level and residential investment are both important factors in the development of green buildings.Moreover,the marginal analysis shows that the effect of the subsidy policy is not consistent every year.The effect of the policy shows a trend of an initial increase,followed by a decrease later.The innovations of this paper are as follows:1.There are few empirical studies on the development of green building in China at present and it is a relatively new field.This paper uses quantitative method instead of usual qualitative research method to test the impacts on green building development.2.The research angle of this paper is original.The study on green building policies is carried out in the field of economics through difference in difference method.Thus,the impact of subsidy policy on the development of green residential buildings can be studied separately and the net effect of the policy can be estimated.3.When using difference in difference method,marginal analysis is applied to examine the effect of the subsidy policy during different years.