Assessing the role of environmental regulations in improving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions: Evidence from the logistics industry

Environmental regulations are an important means for government managers to manage the environment. The motivation of this article is to investigate the influence mechanism of incentive and mandatory environmental regulations on energy efficiency and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the logistics industry. The quantile regression can estimate the comprehensive effect of explanatory variables on dependent variables, including maximum, minimum, and median. Based on the panel data of China's 30 provinces from 2005 to 2019, this paper adopts quantile regression to simulate the impact of environmental regulations on CO2 emissions and energy efficiency. The empirical results obtained are as follows: (1) incentive environmental regulations make a greater contribution to CO2 emission reduction in Ningxia, Qinghai, and Hainan provinces, due to their more aggressive levy of pollution fees. (2) Mandatory environmental regulations contribute the most to CO2 emission reductions in the 25th-50th percentile provinces, since these provinces issue more environmental decrees. (3) Incentive environmental regulations produce a greater influence on the energy efficiency in the 50th-75th, 75th-90th and upper 90th percentile groups, due to their greater R&D investment. (4) Mandatory environmental regulations have a greater impact on energy efficiency in Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, and Yunnan provinces. The findings can provide empirical support for the government to formulate effective environmental policies.