Study On The Impact Of China Railway Express On Carbon Emission Efficiency Of Participating Countries In The Belt And Road Initiative

At the end of 2013,the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)is launched to connect China with other countries in Eurasia under the name of the Silk Road.Despite the achievements of the BRI,there are still international doubts that the real purpose of the BRI is to transfer China’s polluting industries,thus bringing pollution and increased carbon emissions to other countries.This is an argument that has been made by few studies.Few studies have responded to this view,and there is therefore an urgent need to study the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on carbon emissions or the environment in participating countries.This paper studies the impact of the opening of China Railway Express on carbon emission efficiency.The China Railway Express policy has provided a new mode of transportation for trade between China and European countries.Since the Belt and Road Initiative is rich in participation forms,it is difficult to obtain accurate information about the participating countries and the time of participation in it.As an important part and early achievement of the Belt and Road Initiative,the policy of the China Railway Express policy is suitable for analyzing the smooth trade,facility connection and policy communication aspects of the Belt and Road Initiative.As a part of the Belt and Road Initiative and an early achievement,the policy of the China Railway Express is suitable for analyzing the role of trade,facility connectivity and policy communication in the Belt and Road Initiative.Carbon efficiency is an important indicator of carbon performance,and improving carbon efficiency is critical to addressing climate change.Since heterogeneity modeling methods widely used in efficiency assessment tend to artificially classify groups based on a priori information,leading to biased estimates,this paper proposes a new approach to estimate carbon emission efficiency and reduction potential by combining machine learning and radial directional distance function(DDF),in which heterogeneity can be endogenously grouped to fill this knowledge gap.In addition,an index decomposition analysis(IDA)is combined to explore the dynamic determinants of carbon emission abatement potential.This paper uses data from120 sample countries from 2004 to 2018 to assess the carbon emission efficiency.We find that the carbon emission efficiency considering technological heterogeneity ranges from 0.595 to 0.753.This implies a significant emission reduction potential of about 366 million tons in 2018.The emission reduction potential can be attributed to management failures and technology gaps,with the latter accounting for 57.4%-63.8% of the total reduction potential.We believe that the approach in this paper can capture economic and environmental information for each country more accurately than previous methods based on geographic groupings,which may underestimate the abatement potential.The China Railway Express has changed the way goods are transported for trade between China and Europe,as well as the environmental efficiency of the countries involved.This paper identifies the carbon emission efficiency change effects of the China Railway Express policy using a double difference approach using panel data from120 countries over the period 2004-2018.The results find that countries with China Railway Express policy have higher carbon emission efficiency compared to those without China Railway Express policy.This increase in carbon efficiency occurs 2 years after the launch of the China Railway Express policy,indicating that it takes time for the policy to take effect.The findings do not change after using a series of robustness tests such as estimation methods that take into account heterogeneous policy effects.This study provides useful policy insights for improving national carbon efficiency and provides a strong response to questions about the Belt and Road Initiative.