关键词: 碳排放权交易, 政府补贴, 企业经济绩效, 强的波特假说

Abstract: In the context of promoting the goal of “carbon neutrality” and launching the national carbon emission right trading market, this study uses the carbon emission right trading pilot policy implemented in China in 2013 as a quasi-natural experiment and verifies that the mechanism for solving environmental externality problems through the market can achieve a win-win, which means to achieve the dual objectives of guiding industrial enterprises to withdraw from government subsidies and encouraging enterprises to improve economic performance. This study gathers the data of main emitting industrial enterprises in the first seven pilot provinces of China for carbon emissions trading and conducts the research with difference-in-difference method. The results show that carbon emissions trading scheme can harden the soft budget constraint of industrial enterprises by stripping them of policy burdens; while inducing them to withdraw from government subsidies, it does not lead to a decline in their economic performance. The mechanism test shows that the carbon emission trading pilot policy takes the lead in encouraging pilot enterprises to increase R&D investment, makes up for the emission reduction cost through the compensatory effect of innovation, and eventually improves the total factor productivity and economic performance of industrial enterprises. This paper further finds that the carbon emission trading scheme can effectively promote the change of energy-intensive industrial enterprises to high-quality enterprises that dominate the development paradigm. In addition, it finds that quality enterprises with higher market positions show greater improvements in their performance; the internal incentive effect of economic performance is stronger in upstream industrial enterprises, private enterprises, and the regions with stricter carbon quota management. The empirical analysis of this paper provides a basis for policy choices on harmonizing the goal of carbon neutrality and high-quality economic development, and provides experience for the construction of a national carbon emission trading market.

Key words: Carbon Emission Right Trading Scheme, Government Subsidies, Economic Performance of Enterprises, Strong Porter Hypothesis