IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20220061.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Competitiveness and investments under emissions trading

Author

Listed:
  • Leon Bremer

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

  • Konstantin Sommer

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

We study the effects of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) on employment and profits as well as on the investment decisions of Dutch manufacturing firms. Motivated both by sizable differences between firms that are regulated in different phases and by the gradual increase in regulatory stringency, we pay close attention to treatment effect heterogeneity between firms and over time. We use microdata from Statistics Netherlands to apply two difference-in-differences (DiD) estimators: (1) a matched twoway fixed effects regression and (2) a recently developed, more flexible DiD method, designed for staggered treatment and treatment effect heterogeneity. We find that firms that were first regulated in phase 1 and 2 experience temporary employment losses of between 7 to 9% early in the regulation, but we do not find conclusive evidence for changes in profits. Firms that were regulated the earliest reduced their investments throughout all phases.

Suggested Citation

  • Leon Bremer & Konstantin Sommer, 2022. "Competitiveness and investments under emissions trading," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-061/V, Tinbergen Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20220061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/22061.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hintermann, Beat, 2010. "Allowance price drivers in the first phase of the EU ETS," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 43-56, January.
    2. Petrick, Sebastian & Wagner, Ulrich J., 2014. "The impact of carbon trading on industry: Evidence from German manufacturing firms," Kiel Working Papers 1912, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    4. Marit Klemetsen & Knut Einar Rosendahl & Anja Lund Jakobsen, 2020. "The Impacts Of The Eu Ets On Norwegian Plants’ Environmental And Economic Performance," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(01), pages 1-32, February.
    5. Raphael Calel & Antoine Dechezleprêtre, 2016. "Environmental Policy and Directed Technological Change: Evidence from the European Carbon Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 173-191, March.
    6. Ralf Martin & Mirabelle Mu?ls & Laure B. de Preux & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2014. "Industry Compensation under Relocation Risk: A Firm-Level Analysis of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2482-2508, August.
    7. Borghesi, Simone & Cainelli, Giulio & Mazzanti, Massimiliano, 2015. "Linking emission trading to environmental innovation: Evidence from the Italian manufacturing industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 669-683.
    8. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    9. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    10. Teixidó, Jordi & Verde, Stefano F. & Nicolli, Francesco, 2019. "The impact of the EU Emissions Trading System on low-carbon technological change: The empirical evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Giovanni Marin & Marianna Marino & Claudia Pellegrin, 2018. "The Impact of the European Emission Trading Scheme on Multiple Measures of Economic Performance," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(2), pages 551-582, October.
    12. Giovanni Marin & Marianna Marino & Claudia Pellegrin, 2018. "The impact of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme on Multiple Measures of Economic Performance," Post-Print hal-01768870, HAL.
    13. Alberto Abadie, 2005. "Semiparametric Difference-in-Differences Estimators," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 1-19.
    14. Jurate Jaraite-Ka~ukauske and Corrado Di Maria, 2016. "Did the EU ETS Make a Difference? An Empirical Assessment Using Lithuanian Firm-Level Data," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jonathan Colmer & Ralf Martin & Mirabelle Muûls & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2020. "Does pricing carbon mitigate climate change? Firm-level evidence from the European Union emissions trading scheme," CEP Discussion Papers dp1728, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Marit Klemetsen & Knut Einar Rosendahl & Anja Lund Jakobsen, 2020. "The Impacts Of The Eu Ets On Norwegian Plants’ Environmental And Economic Performance," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(01), pages 1-32, February.
    3. Teixidó, Jordi & Verde, Stefano F. & Nicolli, Francesco, 2019. "The impact of the EU Emissions Trading System on low-carbon technological change: The empirical evidence," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Nachtigall, Daniel & Venmans, Frank, 2023. "The joint impact of the European Union emissions trading system on carbon emissions and economic performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    5. aus dem Moore, Nils & Großkurth, Philipp & Themann, Michael, 2019. "Multinational corporations and the EU Emissions Trading System: The specter of asset erosion and creeping deindustrialization," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 1-26.
    6. Sato, Misato & Rafaty, Ryan & Calel, Raphael & Grubb, Michael, 2022. "Allocation, allocation, allocation! The political economy of the development of the European Union Emissions Trading System," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115431, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Beat Hintermann & Maja Žarković & Corrado Di Maria & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2020. "The Effect of Climate Policy on Productivity and Cost Pass-Through in the German Manufacturing Sector," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_249, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    8. Sadayuki, Taisuke & Arimura, Toshi H., 2021. "Do regional emission trading schemes lead to carbon leakage within firms? Evidence from Japan," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    9. Arjan Trinks & Erik Hille, 2023. "Carbon costs and industrial firm performance: Evidence from international microdata," CPB Discussion Paper 445, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    10. Löschel, Andreas & Lutz, Benjamin Johannes & Managi, Shunsuke, 2019. "The impacts of the EU ETS on efficiency and economic performance – An empirical analyses for German manufacturing firms," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 71-95.
    11. Themann, Michael & Koch, Nicolas, 2021. "Catching up and falling behind: Cross-country evidence on the impact of the EU ETS on firm productivity," Ruhr Economic Papers 904, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    12. Giovanni Marin & Marianna Marino & Claudia Pellegrin, 2018. "The Impact of the European Emission Trading Scheme on Multiple Measures of Economic Performance," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(2), pages 551-582, October.
    13. D’Arcangelo, Filippo Maria & Pavan, Giulia & Calligaris, Sara, 2022. "The Impact of the European Carbon Market on Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Manufacturing Firms," FEEM Working Papers 324170, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    14. Filippo Maria D’Arcangelo & Giulia Pavan & Sara Calligaris, 2022. "The Impact of the European Carbon Market on Firm Productivity: Evidence from Italian Manufacturing Firms," Working Papers 2022.24, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    15. Trinks, Arjan & Hille, Erik, 2023. "Carbon Costs and Industrial Firm Performance: Evidence from International Microdata," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277705, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Löschel, Andreas & Lutz, Benjamin Johannes & Managi, Shunsuke, 2016. "The impacts of the EU ETS on efficiency: An empirical analyses for German manufacturing firms," CAWM Discussion Papers 91, University of Münster, Münster Center for Economic Policy (MEP).
    17. aus dem Moore, Nils & Großkurth, Philipp & Themann, Michael, 2017. "Multinational corporations and the EU emissions trading system: Asset erosion and creeping deindustrialization?," Ruhr Economic Papers 719, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    18. Lutz, Benjamin Johannes, 2016. "Emissions trading and productivity: Firm-level evidence from German manufacturing," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-067, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Giovanni Marin & Marianna Marino & Claudia Pellegrin, 2018. "The impact of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme on Multiple Measures of Economic Performance," Post-Print hal-01768870, HAL.
    20. Friedrich, Marina & Mauer, Eva-Maria & Pahle, Michael & Tietjen, Oliver, 2020. "From fundamentals to financial assets: the evolution of understanding price formation in the EU ETS," EconStor Preprints 196150, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, revised 2020.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emissions trading; Environmental regulation; Staggered Difference-in-Differences; Treatment heterogeneity; Manufacturing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20220061. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.