Research On The Regulatory Effect Of China’s Carbon Emission Trading System On Regulated Enterprises

In the past,China mainly achieved carbon emission reduction through administrative coercive measures,but the efficiency of administrative coercive measures is low and the cost is high.In order to make the market play a decisive role in the allocation of resources,the Chinese government actively explored the role of market mechanism in the allocation of carbon emission quotas,and gradually supplemented the main administrative mandatory measures currently used.Carbon emission trading has become an important way and practical choice to achieve the goal of energy conservation,emission reduction and lowcarbon development.As of 2019,China’s carbon trading pilot has been running for 6 years,and its actual effect and regulatory effect on emission control enterprises are worthy of further study.Therefore,this paper studies the impact of China’s carbon emission trading on regulated enterprises from two aspects of low-carbon technology innovation and green investment.To quantitatively estimate the regulatory effect of China’s carbon emission trading on the innovation level of emission control enterprises,this paper employs the difference-indifference(DID)and DID-based propensity score matching models to evaluate the effect of CET on technology innovation.On this basis,we further investigate the industry heterogeneity of the impact of China’s carbon emission trading on enterprise technological innovation,and explore the reasons for the industry heterogeneity.To explore the regulatory effect of China’s carbon emission trading on green investment of regulatory enterprises,this paper uses the fixed effect-DID method to explore the impact of carbon emission trading on green investment of these listed enterprises.Considering the differences of carbon emission trading in each pilot,we also investigate the regional heterogeneity of carbon emission trading on green investment of enterprises,meanwhile,the reasons for the regional heterogeneity are analyzed.The results indicate that: First,the effect of China’s CET on the technology innovation of related enterprises is generally not significant during the sample period,but this effect presents evident industrial heterogeneity.Specifically,among the eight CET‐covered industries,the CET policy helps to improve technology innovation for power and aviation enterprises but not in the other six industries(i.e.,steel,chemical,building material,petrochemical,nonferrous metals,and paper),which implies that China’s CET policy still has great potential for promoting the technology innovation of related enterprises.Second,the effect of China’s CET on the green investment of related enterprises is generally not significant during the sample period,but the effect shows obvious regional heterogeneity.Specifically,in the seven carbon trading pilot areas,the CET promoted the green investment of relevant enterprises in Hubei,but restrained the green investment of relevant enterprises in Guangdong and Tianjin.At the same time,for other four carbon trading pilot areas in Beijing,Shanghai,Chongqing and Shenzhen,the effect of the CET on the green investment level of relevant enterprises is not significant.The above results are helpful to summarize the results of China’s CET and provide experience support for the effective implementation of the national CET.