地方知名度与全球诚信：来自企业碳抵消的证据（英）

Policy Research Working Paper Local Visibility vs. Global Integrity Evidence from Corporate Carbon OffsettingPublic Disclosure Authorized Alvaro PedrazaTomas WilliamsFederica Zeni Policy Research Working Paper11311 Abstract sourced abroad, revealing a negative local quality gradient.This pattern persists with firm experience and generatesequilibrium price-quality decoupling: in jurisdictions withconcentrated local demand, prices become less responsiveto project quality. The resulting distortions can generate a“market for lemons” dynamic, reallocating climate financeaway from high-abatement-potential regions toward areas Although the climate impact of carbon abatement isgeographically invariant, this paper documents limitedgeographic fungibility in voluntary carbon markets. Firmsdisproportionately retire offsets in countries where theyoperate. The paper contrasts anInformation Channel,whereby local presence improves project screening, with This paper is a product of the Development Research Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by theWorld Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around theworld. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors maybe contacted at apedrazamorales@worldbank.org. A verified reproducibility package for this paper is available athttp:// The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those Local Visibility vs. Global Integrity: Evidence from JEL Codes: F18, L14, Q54, Q58, G32.Keywords: Voluntary carbon markets, Operational footprint, Social capital, Carbon offset quality. 1Introduction Carbon dioxide is the canonical global externality: the climate impact of a ton of emissions is invariantto its geographic source. By extension, carbon offsets should be perfectly fungible. In a frictionless market, a verified unit ofCO2removal or avoidance in Brazil should be a perfect substitute for anidentical unit in Indonesia.However, this paper documents a stark departure from this benchmark. demand is systematically correlated with firms’ operational geography. More importantly, we find thatthis geographic concentration is associated with systematically lower-quality offset projects, suggesting The voluntary carbon market has emerged as a key vehicle for corporate decarbonization, yet it remainscharacterized by pervasive informational asymmetries and quality uncertainty. Critics frequently pointto the lack of additionality and permanence in many offset projects, raising concerns that the marketfacilitates “greenwashing” rather than genuine abatement (e.g., Schneider et al., 2019; West et al., 2023; We document that firms allocate a disproportionate share of their retirements to countries where theymaintain a physical operational presence (Figure 1). Crucially, because these retirements occur withinthe voluntary carbon market rather than compliance regimes, this concentration is not driven by regula- face no formal obligation to align their offset portfolios with their operational geography. This suggeststhat the observed spatial distribution reflects a strategic choice rather than a regulatory constraint.1 To rationalize this “local bias,” we consider two countervailing mechanisms. TheInformation Channelsuggests that operational presence facilitates screening of project quality through local knowledge andproximity. TheGoodwill Channelinstead posits that firms derive non-pecuniary benefits from local Recent pricing evidence suggests that non-pecuniary attributes play an important role in carbon creditvaluation. Berg et al. (2025) show that credits with highemotional tangibilitycommand price premiadespite offering lower climate reliability, indicating that reputational value may outweigh objective To distinguish between these mechanisms, we develop a conceptual framework of offset choice un-der asymmetric information and non-pecuniary payoffs. While both channels rationalize geographicconcentration, they imply opposing predictions for equilibrium quality. Under theInformation Chan-nel, operational presence enhances screening, leading to a positive quality gradient: offsets retired ina firm’s country of operations should exhibit higher environmental integrity than those retired abroad. We test these predictions by merging the universe of retirement records from major VCM registries withfirm-level geographic revenue data and ex-post project ratings. Our empirical strategy employs firm-by-year fixed effects, allowing us to compare the quality of offsets the same firm ret