| Low-carbon and green development has become the top priority of the environmental policies of various countries to slow down global warming.At previous climate conferences,China took the lead in making green development commitments,pushing forward green development around the world.Our country has been pursuing the harmonious development between man and nature.Green development is not only an early fulfillment of the commitment to international emission reduction,but also an inherent requirement to achieve high-quality development and economic transformation.From the "ecological civilization construction" to the "five development concepts" from the "13th Five-Year Plan" to the "14th Five-Year Plan",the importance of "green" has become increasingly prominent.To reduce carbon emissions,the establishment of a carbon market is undoubtedly a crucial step.In October of 2011,China officially approved seven provinces and cities as the first batch of pilot areas to carry out the pilot work of carbon emissions trading.Seven pilot projects had launched by the end of July 2014.Based on the Porter hypothesis and previous studies,this article combines the data from 2011 to 2017 and takes the pilot carbon emissions trading policy as a quasi-natural experiment to empirically test weak Porter hypothesis from the perspective of green innovation for A-share listed companies using the difference in difference in difference model.In addition,this article explores how the policy influences economic performance of enterprises in pilot industries in pilot areas,including financial performance and corporate output level,and the intermediary role of green innovation to test strong Porter hypothesis.Combining empirical results,the paper brings out conclusions below:(1)Enterprises in the pilot industries in the pilot areas improves the green innovation level because of the implementation of pilot carbon emissions trading policy.(2)The policy has increased the number of green patents of high quality by enterprises in the pilot industries in the pilot areas,but the positive effect on green patents of low quality is not significant.(3)For the state-owned enterprises,large-scale enterprises,high-margin enterprises and enterprises with high long-term debt ratio in the pilot industries in the pilot areas,the carbon emissions trading pilot policy encourages enterprises to carry out green innovation.For non-state-owned enterprises,small-scale enterprises,low-margin enterprises and enterprises with low long-term debt ratio,this effect is not significant.(4)In the short term,this policy restrains the economic performance(financial performance and output)of the enterprises in the pilot industries in the pilot areas.In the long term,this negative effect is no longer significant.Enterprises output,by contrast,responds more quickly to policy.(5)Green innovation has a partial intermediary effect in the aforementioned process in which the carbon emissions trading pilot policy affects economic performance of enterprises.In the process of restraining the short-term output level of enterprises,green innovation has a mitigating effect.In summary,this article starts with actual micro-enterprise data and proves that the pilot carbon emissions trading policy aimed at reducing carbon emissions stimulates enterprises’ green innovation activities and then promotes green development.However,the policy cannot improve the economic performance.The conclusion of the article confirms the existence of the weak Porter hypothesis,but does not support the strong Porter hypothesis.Theoretically,it enriches the related research on green innovation at micro level and the research on environmental regulations and corporate economic performance.Additionally,from reality it provides realistic basis and policy recommendations for the establishment and improvement of the national carbon emissions trading market. |
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