| With the common influence of natural condition changes and human activities,global warming is becoming more and more serious in recent years.According to IPCC Fifth Assessment Report,global average temperature has increased by 0.85 ?from 1880 to 2012.And the lastest observations show that the trend of global warming is continuing.According to WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2017,the five-year mean temperature for 2013-2017 is the highest on record.Compared to global,the warming trend in China is more obvious.According to China's Climate Change Blue Book in 2018 issued by China Meteorological Administration,China's average temperature has increased 0.24? every ten years from 1951 to 2017 and the warming rate is higher than the global average level.Global warming is closely related to the production and life of human society and has brought huge influences on human health,food security,economic development,social stability,population migration and energy consumption,which has attracted high attention and widespread concern of international organizations,governments around the world and scientists.Paris agreement adoptd in the 21 th United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2015 set the global temperature rise of 2?as the risk level of climate change and established global action objectives.China's Thirteenth Five-Year Plan also made it clear that we should fight against climate change actively and take coping with climate change as the internal requirements and important opportunities to achieve sustainable development.Therefore,in the context of global warming,strengthening climate change researches and assessing the effects of global warming on economy can provide a solid scientific basis for government to make climate change policies and it is also of great significance to guarantee the sustainable development of economy and social stability.In academics,studies evaluating the impact of climate change mainly focus on the effect of climate change on agriculture because agriculture sector has a direct link with atmospheric conditions.But compared to the agricultural sector,the industrial sector accounts for a much larger share of gross domestic product in many countries around the world.Moreover,the production capacity and knowledge accumulation contained in the industry is the key factor that determines a country's long-term economic development.However,studies evaluating the impacts of temperature changes on industrial sector are scant not only in China but also in the world.Therefore,this paper uses Chinese industrial enterprises database and daily weather data from 1998 to 2007 to study the effect of global warming on China's industrial sector and the channels through which temperature changes have affected industrial sector,which can comprehensively assess the impact of global warming on Chinese economy.The paper is divided into seven chapters and the main contents of each chapter are as follows:Chapter one introduces the research background,research significance,research contents and thoughts,research framework,research methods and major innovations.Chapter two reviews the related literature both at home and abroad.This chapter begins with an overview of the current situation and causes of global warming.Then it reviews economic studies about the impacts of global warming,including the impacts of global warming on gross domestic product,agricultural sector,industrial sector and other aspects of society.Finally,this chapter evaluates related literature and summarizes problems in the current researches.Chapter three analyzes the effects of temperature changes on China's industrial output.We find that: Firstly,Industrial output is nonlinear in temperature changes.With seasonal average temperatures as temperature variables,industrial output responds negatively to elevated summer temperatures and positively to higher winter temperatures.With temperature bins as temperature variables,relative to a day at [12?,15?),one additional day at higher or lower temperature ranges is expected to reduce industrial output.And the negative effects on industrial output are particularly large when daily average temperatures are above 30°C or below-6°C.In addition,increased temperature variability is also harmful to industrial output.Secondly,the effects of temperature changes on industrial output differ considerably across ownerships,with privately-owned and collectively-owned firms most affected by high summer temperatures and the effects of higher summer temperatures on output of SOEs and foreign firms are insignificant.Thirdly,industrial enterprises in hot regions will take some types of adaptation behaviors to alleviate the negative effects of thermal conditions on industrial output.Fially,industrial output in China is projected to decrease by 1.2%-14.6% by 2070 and0.6%-20.0% by 2100.Chapter four investigates the channels through which temperature changes have affected industrial output.We find that: Firstly,higher summer temperatures can reduce industrial output by negatively influencing firm's TFP,capital,investment and innovation.In addition,TFP,capital,investment and innovation also exhibit nonlinear responses to temperatures.Specially,relative to a day at[12?,15?),one additional day at lower or higher temperature ranges will reduce manufacturing firms' TFP,capital,investment and innovation.Secondly,industrial enterprises in high-temperature regions in China can adapt to rising temperatures by improving its' TFP,and thus alleviate the negative impact of high temperatures on industrial output.Lastly,future global warming will lead to a decline in TFP,capital,investment and innovation of industrial enterprises in China.Chapter five investigates the effects of temperature changes on China's industrial profit.We find that: Firstly,we detect an inverted U-shaped relationship between temperature and industrial profit.Industrial profit increases with temperature up to [12?,15?),and then declines at higher temperatures.The optimal temperature range for industrial profit maximization is [12?,15?).In addition,increased temperature variability is also harmful to industrial profit.Secondly,the effects of temperature on industrial profit differ considerably across ownership types and industries.Thirdly,higher summer temperatures have larger detrimental effects on profit in low-temperature regions than in high-temperature regions,which suggests that adaptation to warming have been actively undertaken in high-temperature regions in China.Lastly,the total profit of Chinese manufacturing firms is projected to decline by 2.62%-17.04% by 2070 and 4.83%-17.89% by 2100 under the A2,A1 B and B1 scenarios.Chapter six investigates the channels through which temperature changes have affected industrial profit.We find that,higher summer temperatures can not only reduce firm's TFP,capital,investment and innovation,but can also increase labor costs through high temperature subsidies,thus negatively influencing industrial profit.Further analysis indicates that the effects of hot summer days on manufacturing firms' labor costs differ considerably across ownership types and industries.The last chapter summarizes the main findings and puts forwards some policy recommendations.Also,it points out the limitations of this paper and the direction of future research.The contributions and innovations of this paper are mainly reflected in four aspects: research perspectives,research data,research methods and research findings.Specifically elaborated as follows:Firstly,in terms of research perspective,the topics in this article are relatively novel.The domestic studies mainly focus on evaluating the impacts of global warming on the agricultural sector.But compared to the agricultural sector,the industrial sector accounts for a much larger share of gross domestic product(GDP)in China and is the key driving force of economic growth.Therefore,focusing solely on the agricultural sector may underestimate the overall impact of global warming on Chinese economy.However,studies evaluating the impacts of temperature changes on industrial sector remain scant in our country and the existing studies only estimates the relationship between temperature and industrial output.But compared to industrial output,industrial profit can reflect the actual operative quality of industrial economy more accurately.However,there is few studies examining the relationship between temperature and industrial profit.And there are also no studies examining the channels through which temperature changes have affected industrial sector.This paper is the first one to study the effects of temperature changes on China's industrial output and profit as well as the channels behind this relationship,which is an important supplement to the existing literature.Secondly,in terms of research data,due to unavailable data,most existing studies at home and abroad evaluating the impacts of temperature changes on industrial sector mainly use coarse aggregate macro-level data.This paper uses micro-data at firm level,which can not only effectively solve the problem of aggregation error of macro data,but can also examine whether the effects of rising temperature differ across different types of firms and whether there are differences in coping with high temperature among different firms.This paper is helpful for government to take targeted measures to improve the ability of different firms to cope with climate warming.Thirdly,in terms of research methods,most existing studies construct annual average temperature as the temperature variable and examine the linear relationship between temperature and industrial production.But the effect of temperature change on enterprises' economic activities may be non-linear.At different temperature levels,the marginal effects of rising temperatures may be different.In order to verify this,this paper uses seasonal average temperatures and a vector of temperature bins as temperature variables respectively,which can not only examine the effects of seasonal temperatures changes on industrial output and profit,but can also investigate the nolinear relationship between temperature and industrial output and profit.In addition,this paper also identifies the critical temperature threshold above and below which is detrimental to industrial profit.Finally,in terms of research findings,researches abroad show that rich countries or regions will take adaptation behaviors to mitigate the negative effects of high temperatures on output.In this article,we find that adaptation to global warming may have been actively undertaken in high temperature regions in China,which goes beyond previous empirical findings.This study provides new micro evidence to understand the adaptation behaviors in high-temperature regions and make up for blanks in this field. |
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