The Impact Of The Carbon Emissions Trading System On The Operating Efficiency Of Chinese Power Companies

In recent years,China’s economy has made great achievements in many aspects,but with it are increasingly serious environmental and ecological destruction,as well as uncontrolled consumption of energy,which have obviously become factors restricting the further development of the economy.Therefore,environmental regulations came into being.From the initial command-based environmental regulations to the current market-based environmental regulations,these are the results of the exploration of environmental governance issues by relevant government departments.Electricity is the foundation of the national economy,and the electric power industry plays a very important role in the country’s economic development.The power industry has a single economic structure,and most of the generation of electric energy is coal combustion and other thermal power generation,and the annual carbon emissions are huge.Therefore,the carbon trading system of the power industry is put on the agenda as a kind of environmental regulation policy.Is the implementation of the carbon emissions trading system an obstacle or resistance to the operating efficiency of power companies? Or can we achieve a win-win situation for environmental protection and improving the operating efficiency of power companies at the same time?On the basis of combing the relevant domestic and foreign literature,based on the sustainable development theory,externality theory,property right theory and information asymmetry and other related theories,this paper discusses the relationship between environmental regulation,financing constraints and business efficiency.The DEA model is used to measure the operating efficiency of my country’s listed power companies,and the pilot carbon emissions trading policy is used as a “quasi-natural experiment”.Based on the panel data of China’s A-share listed power companies from 2008 to 2018,the pilot carbon policy is used to test the listing of China’s power companies.The impact of the company’s operating efficiency,and the use of the double difference method and related robustness tests have shown that the carbon pilot policy has significantly promoted the operating efficiency of listed electric power companies.On this basis,the intermediary effect model is used to analyze the relationship among carbon emissions trading pilot policies,financing constraints,and the operating efficiency of power companies.The results show that financing constraints play a significant part of the intermediary role in the positive effect of carbon pilot policies on corporate operating efficiency,that is,the implementation of carbon pilot policies can further promote the improvement of power companies’ operating efficiency by weakening the financing constraints of power companies.In addition,the carbon pilot policies have different performance in operating efficiency among heterogeneous enterprises,and the specific performance is more obvious in the promotion of state-owned enterprises and thermal and gas turbine power generation enterprises.The research in this article not only enriches the empirical research in the field of carbon pilot policies,but also provides a useful reference for my country’s comprehensive launch of the carbon emissions trading mechanism.In order to fully implement the carbon emissions trading mechanism in my country,the government should: First,accelerate the improvement of my country’s carbon emissions trading system and trading market,and reduce emissions trading costs.Second,establish and improve a credit support system for power companies to alleviate the external financing constraints that companies face.Third,give full play to the demonstration role of state-owned power companies in carbon emission pilots.Fourth,further strengthen the support and supervision of carbon emissions from non-state-controlled power companies.Electric power companies should: First,raise awareness of the importance of environmental protection and sustainable development.Second,the environmental protection and corporate development strategy should be planned simulta neously.Third,establish and improve a scientific carbon emission trading management system within the enterprise.Fourth,take the initiative to regularly disclose the company’s environmental information to stakeholders.