The impact of China's emission trading scheme policy on enterprise green technological innovation quality: evidence from eight high-carbon emission industries.

Abstract

Emission trading scheme (ETS) is one of the most important ways to mitigate carbon emissions. As the largest carbon emitter in the world, China implemented ETS policy in 2013. Whether ETS policy can boost enterprise green technological innovation (GTI) quality in China remains to be discussed after reviewing the previous studies. All 318 A-share listed enterprises of China's eight high-carbon emission industries from 2008 to 2021 are chosen to investigate the influence of the ETS policy on enterprise GTI quality by the difference-in-difference (DID) method. Furthermore, heterogeneous effects of ETS policy on the quality of enterprise GTI are analyzed from three aspects: enterprise life cycle, corporate environmental management, and industry classification. The findings indicate that China's ETS policy has a positive influence on the quality of GTI in eight high-carbon emission industries. Further heterogeneity analysis demonstrates (1) China's ETS policy has varying effects on the eight high-carbon emission industries; (2) China's ETS policy can improve GTI quality of enterprises in the maturity stage of their life cycle, but not for those in their growth stage. (3) Comparing the effect of China's ETS policy, GTI quality of enterprises with higher environmental management score is stimulated, while GTI quality of those with lower score is not.