关键词: 碳排放, 结构突变, ARDL模型, VECM模型, 环境库茨涅茨曲线

Abstract: To explore the low-carbon economic development path of China, this paper profoundly analyzes the long-term equilibrium, short-term dynamic relationship and Granger causality among economic growth, urbanization, technical innovation, foreign trade and per capita carbon emissions by collecting time series data in China over the period from 1985 to 2014, in which the BP endogenous structural breaks test, the autoregressive distributed lag modeling(ARDL)with structural break points and the Granger causality test based on vector error correction model(VECM)are employed. The empirical results show that there is a long term co-integration relationship between per capita carbon emissions and explanatory variables in China. There is an inverted-U relationship between the economic growth and carbon emissions in the long-term. The improvement of urbanization can effectively reduce per capita carbon emissions. There is a significant negative correlation between technical innovation and per capita carbon emissions. However, trade openness will cause environmental degradation. In the short-term, trade openness has a positive impact on per capita carbon emissions, and the impacts of other variables on per capita carbon emission are not significant. In addition, Granger causality test indicates that there are causal relationships between all explanatory variables and per capita carbon emissions. In the meantime, there is a two-way causal relationship between economic growth, trade openness and per capita carbon emission.

Key words: carbon emissions, structural break, ARDL model, VECM, EKC