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The effectiveness of China's regional carbon market pilots in reducing firm emissions.

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Date
2021-12
Authors
Cui, Jingbo
Wang, Chunhua
Zhang, Junjie
Zheng, Yang
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Abstract
China has implemented an emission trading system (ETS) to reduce its ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining rapid economic growth. With low carbon prices and infrequent allowance trading, whether China's ETS is an effective approach for climate mitigation has entered the center of the policy and research debate. Utilizing China's regional ETS pilots as a quasi-natural experiment, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of ETS on firm carbon emissions and economic outcomes by means of a matched difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The empirical analysis is based on a unique panel dataset of firm tax records in the manufacturing and public utility sectors during 2009 to 2015. We show unambiguous evidence that the regional ETS pilots are effective in reducing firm emissions, leading to a 16.7% reduction in total emissions and a 9.7% reduction in emission intensity. Regulated firms achieve emission abatement through conserving energy consumption and switching to low-carbon fuels. The economic consequences of the ETS are mixed. On one hand, the ETS has a negative impact on employment and capital input; on the other hand, the ETS incentivizes regulated firms to improve productivity. In the aggregate, the ETS does not exhibit statistically significant effects on output and export. We also find that the ETS displays notable heterogeneity across pilots. Mass-based allowance allocation rules, higher carbon prices, and active allowance trading contribute to more pronounced effects in emission abatement.
Type
Journal article
Subject
climate change
emission trading system
firm emissions
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/24198
Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1073/pnas.2109912118
Publication Info
Cui, Jingbo; Wang, Chunhua; Zhang, Junjie; & Zheng, Yang (2021). The effectiveness of China's regional carbon market pilots in reducing firm emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(52). pp. e2109912118-e2109912118. 10.1073/pnas.2109912118. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/24198.
This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Scholars@Duke

Cui

Jingbo Cui

Associate Professor of Applied Economics at Duke Kunshan University
Bio: Dr. Jingbo Cui is an Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Division of Social Sciences and Environmental Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. Before the current position, he was a Chu-Tian Junior Scholar from the Department of Education in Hubei Province, an associate professor at the School of Economics and Management at Wuhan University, a post-doctoral research associate, and visiting scholar at Iowa State University. He holds a Ph.D. in economics fro
Zhang

Junjie Zhang

Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences and Policy
Junjie Zhang is Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Investment (ISI) at Duke Kunshan University (DKU) and Associate Professor of Environmental Economics in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.  Zhang’s research focuses on empirical issues in environmental and resource economics, with topics covering air pollution, energy transition, and climate change. He has received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Oceanic and A
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