How Carbon Emission Trading Effects Enterprise Technological Innovation: A Quasi-Natural Experiment from China

Abstract

As an important policy tool to realize the vision of "carbon peaking and carbon neutralization", the carbon emission trading system is considered to be useful for alleviating enterprise financing constraints and stimulating high-quality technological innovation. Based on the data of Chinese listed companies, this paper tests the above policy effects by setting a quasi-natural experiment. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The introduction of the market mechanism for carbon emission control can improve the quality of enterprise R & D, and the mitigation of financing constraints has a positive contribution to this improvement; (2) The innovation incentive effect of carbon emission trading system is significant in the sample of state-owned enterprises with government credit endorsement, but it shows the opposite statistical results in non-state-owned enterprises; (3) The incentive effect of carbon emission trading system on innovation quality is higher in heavy pollution industries than others. The above conclusions have important reference value for developing countries to achieve the dual goals of high-quality economic development.