| The labor income share refers to the proportion of labor factor income to the income of all production factors.It is a key indicator of the factor income distribution.As a large labor-rich country,the labor income share largely affects the final income distribution pattern,and a lower labor income share also reduces consumption demand and intensifies social conflicts.However,most of the existing literature has focused on the scale income distribution effects of environmental policies and ignored their effects on labor income shares.Under the constraint of carbon emission trading policy,carbon emission permits become a scarce resource,and enterprises need to have enough carbon emission permits to reduce their carbon emissions,so carbon emission permits become a necessary production input for firms.Therefore,carbon emission permits have the basic properties of factors of production.If carbon emission permits are considered as a new factor of production,the change in the input quantity and the price of carbon emission permits will have an impact on the income distribution of capital and labor factors,and the share of labor income will also change.With the gradual strengthening of the carbon emissions trading policy in China and the gradual reduction of the total amount of carbon emission permits,its impact on the labor income share will gradually be highlighted.Therefore,it is necessary to investigate the impact of China’s carbon emissions trading policy on labor income share.This study focuses on the impact of carbon emissions trading policy on labor income share,and the main content is divided into three parts.The first part is the theoretical analysis.This study constructs a general equilibrium model of the impact of carbon emissions trading policy on labor income share,divides the production sector into the high-carbon sector and the low-carbon sector,assumes that the high-carbon sector is constrained by carbon emissions trading policy and the low-carbon sector is not constrained by carbon emissions policy,and considers carbon emissions permits as a factor of production into the production function of the high-carbon sector,takes carbon emissions trading policy as an exogenous shock,discusses the labor income share Changes in the labor income share are discussed,and the theoretical mechanism of carbon emission trading policy affecting the labor income share is modeled and logically analyzed.The second part is the assessment of policy effects.This study uses ETWFE model and CSDID model to test the degree of impact,dynamic effect,period heterogeneity,cohort heterogeneity,and impact mechanism of carbon emissions trading policy on labor income share.This study analyzes possible endogeneity such as selection bias or omitted variables.A series of robustness tests such as replacement matching methods,replacement regression methods,replacement study samples,exclusion of confounding policies,endogeneity tests,and placebo tests are conducted to increase the reliability of the empirical results.The third section presents the simulation prediction of the policy effect.This study further simulates and predicts the policy effects of carbon emissions trading policy on labor income share from a national perspective.For the two different carbon emissions trading policy design scenarios of "based on total carbon emissions" and "based on carbon emissions intensity",the "total model" and "intensity model" are constructed respectively.This study predicts the possible impacts in the future of China’s carbon emission trading policy on labor income shares under three scenarios: business as usual(BAU)scenario,reinforced policy(RP)scenario and low carbon(LC)scenario through numerical simulations.In addition,welfare analysis is conducted based on the above simulation prediction results combined with micro data from the household income survey.The main conclusions drawn from this study are as follows.First,the theoretical analysis shows that the carbon emission trading policy affects the labor income share through the "factor substitution effect" and the "industrial restructuring effect".When the elasticity of substitution between carbon emission rights and labor factors is greater than that with capital factors,the "factor substitution effect" is positive and increases the labor income share.When the ratio of labor-capital factor inputs in the high-carbon sector is smaller than that in the low-carbon sector,the "industrial restructuring effect" is positive and raises the labor income share.Second,the results of the policy effect assessment based on firm-level data show that China’s carbon emission trading policy significantly increases the labor income share of firms.The empirical analysis based on period heterogeneity finds that the effect of carbon emissions trading policy on firms’ labor income share tends to increase over time and increases significantly since 2017.The empirical analysis based on cohort heterogeneity finds that the effect of carbon emissions trading policy on firms’ labor income share is independent of when firms are first included in the carbon emissions trading market.The empirical analysis based on dynamic effects finds that the impact of carbon emission trading policy on firms’ labor income share is positive and sustainable,and the degree of its impact steadily increases with the duration of the policy implementation.Third,the results of the policy effect assessment based on regional-level data show that China’s carbon emissions trading policy significantly increases the regional labor income share.The estimation results of the static effect model show that the average treatment effect of carbon emissions trading policy on labor income share is significantly positive.The estimation results of the dynamic effect model show that the effect of carbon emissions trading policy on regional labor income share has a significant dynamic effect that increases with the duration of policy implementation.The assessment of the policy effect based on period heterogeneity finds that the effect of carbon emissions trading policy on regional labor income share The policy effect assessment based on period heterogeneity finds that the impact of carbon emissions trading policy on regional labor income share decreases and then increases with the change of period,showing a "U-shaped" trend.An assessment of policy effects based on cohort heterogeneity finds that for regions that opened carbon emissions trading markets in 2013 and 2014,China’s carbon emissions trading policy significantly increase regional labor income shares.Regions that opened a carbon emissions trading market in 2013 were affected to a greater extent than those that opened a carbon emissions trading market in 2014.For regions that opened a carbon emissions trading market in 2016,the carbon emissions trading policy did not significantly affect regional labor income shares.Fourth,the results of the policy effect simulations show that the carbon emission trading policy raises labor income share under both the "total-based" and "intensity-based" carbon allowance restriction scenarios.However,the carbon allowance restriction scheme "intensity-based" has a greater effect on the labor income share.In the BAU scenario,the change in labor income is 4.82%,8.79%,and 12.04% in 2025,2030,and 2035,respectively;in the RP scenario,the change in labor income is 5.36%,9.65%,and 13.08% in 2025,2030,and 2035,respectively;and in the LC scenario,the change in labor income is 5.90%,10.51%,and 14.07%,respectively.Based on the above research findings,this study puts forward four policy recommendations.First,"actively promote the construction of a national carbon market and release the effect of multiple dividends of policies".Second,"highlight the status of carbon emission rights as a factor,and give full play to the role of factor substitution".Thirdly,"set the total amount of carbon quotas moderately tight,and promote the low-carbon adjustment of industrial structure".Fourth,"limiting carbon allowances by carbon emission intensity to strengthen the positive effect of the carbon market".Compared with existing studies,this study may have the following three marginal contributions.First,in terms of research perspective,this study strengthens the concept of carbon emission rights production factors,incorporates carbon emission rights factors into the production function of the high carbon sector,and explores the changes of labor income share under the framework of "capital,labor,and carbon emission permits",which breaks the limitation of the original research of discussing factor substitution and bias under the traditional two-factor framework.This study expands the perspective of labor income share research by breaking the limitations of the traditional two-factor framework,which only discusses the effects of factor substitution,bias,technological progress and industrial restructuring on labor income share.Moreover,different from the existing studies that mostly explore the scale income distribution effect of carbon emission trading policy,this study explores the impact of carbon emission trading policy on labor income share from the research perspective of factor income distribution,and also enriches the research related to the income distribution effect of carbon emission trading policy.Second,in terms of methodology in this study,it can provide references for other studies in assessing other policy effects of carbon emissions trading in China.Since the carbon emissions trading policy is a multi-period pilot policy,this study uses the ETWFE model and CSDID model to avoid the limitation that the benchmark DID method cannot consider the heterogeneity of policy effects.Third,in terms of research content,this study not only includes the assessment of the real effects of the pilot policy,but also covers the simulation prediction of the future effects of the policy,and predicts the possible effects of the future carbon emissions trading policy on the labor income share under three different scenarios through numerical simulation methods.In addition,this study also conducts a welfare prediction analysis of the policy effects of carbon emissions trading policy affecting labor income share based on the simulation prediction results. |
PDF Full Text Request