IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v87y2025icp1670-1689.html

Does carbon emission trading policy improve agricultural energy transition? Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Rong, Jing
  • Guo, Quan
  • Chen, Shikun
  • Hao, Jinghui

Abstract

The carbon emission trading (CET) policy is crucial for China to meet its goals of reaching ‘carbon peak’ and achieving ‘carbon neutrality’. However, as a market-driven environmental regulation, it remains uncertain whether the CET policy could improve the structural transition of agricultural energy consumption (AET) and what its impact mechanisms might be. This study employs provincial panel data from China between 2005 and 2022, utilizing a difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the effect of the CET policy on AET. The CET policy has been found to significantly improve AET, based on placebo tests and robustness checks. However, the policy effects vary with regional location, the extent of labor mobility, and temporal dynamics. There are significantly positive impacts in the eastern and western regions as well as areas in China with high labor mobility. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that the CET policy’s effect on AET exhibits a time-lag, with the impact on AET progressively increasing each year after the policy takes effect. The results of the mechanism analysis indicate that agricultural green technology innovation (AGTI) could positively contribute to the CET policy’s promotion of the AET. However, we are unable to verify the influence of digital economy (DE) in this process. This study offers both theoretical over CET policy on AET, and helps identify the causal relationship between the CET policy and AET and offer insights for public policy development to support further advancements in carbon emission policy implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Rong, Jing & Guo, Quan & Chen, Shikun & Hao, Jinghui, 2025. "Does carbon emission trading policy improve agricultural energy transition? Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1670-1689.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:1670-1689
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.07.032
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592625003066
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2025.07.032?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weiming Liu & Yating Qiu & Lijiang Jia & Hang Zhou, 2022. "Carbon Emissions Trading and Green Technology Innovation—A Quasi-natural Experiment Based on a Carbon Trading Market Pilot," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Lin, Boqiang & Omoju, Oluwasola E., 2017. "Focusing on the right targets: Economic factors driving non-hydro renewable energy transition," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 52-63.
    3. Claudia Kettner-Marx & Angela Köppl & Stefan Schleicher, 2008. "Stringency and Distribution in the EU Emission Trading Scheme: First Evidence. TranSust.Scan Working Paper," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 38924.
    4. Lv, Chengchao & Shao, Changhua & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2021. "Green technology innovation and financial development: Do environmental regulation and innovation output matter?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Gao, Ming, 2023. "The impacts of carbon trading policy on China's low-carbon economy based on county-level perspectives," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    6. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Peng, Yu-Lu & Ma, Chao-Qun & Shen, Bo, 2017. "Can environmental innovation facilitate carbon emissions reduction? Evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 18-28.
    7. Schlund, David & Schönfisch, Max, 2021. "Analysing the impact of a renewable hydrogen quota on the European electricity and natural gas markets," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    8. Lin, Boqiang & Jia, Zhijie, 2019. "What will China's carbon emission trading market affect with only electricity sector involvement? A CGE based study," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 301-311.
    9. Du, Gang & Yu, Meng & Sun, Chuanwang & Han, Zhao, 2021. "Green innovation effect of emission trading policy on pilot areas and neighboring areas: An analysis based on the spatial econometric model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    10. Carlsson, Bo, 2004. "The Digital Economy: what is new and what is not?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 245-264, September.
    11. Eric Williams, 2011. "Environmental effects of information and communications technologies," Nature, Nature, vol. 479(7373), pages 354-358, November.
    12. Zhang, Yaxin & Zeng, Shibo & Wu, Qiaosheng & Fu, Junyi & Li, Tongping, 2023. "A study on the impact of the carbon emissions trading policy on the mining industry based on Porter hypothesis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(PB).
    13. David Schlund & Max Schönfisch, 2021. "Analysing the Impact of a Renewable Hydrogen Quota on the European Electricity and Natural Gas Markets," EWI Working Papers 2021-3, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    14. Ellison Carter & Li Yan & Yu Fu & Brian Robinson & Frank Kelly & Paul Elliott & Yangfeng Wu & Liancheng Zhao & Majid Ezzati & Xudong Yang & Queenie Chan & Jill Baumgartner, 2020. "Household transitions to clean energy in a multiprovincial cohort study in China," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 42-50, January.
    15. Rauch, James E., 1999. "Networks versus markets in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 7-35, June.
    16. Wang, Han & Chen, Zhoupeng & Wu, Xingyi & Nie, Xin, 2019. "Can a carbon trading system promote the transformation of a low-carbon economy under the framework of the porter hypothesis? —Empirical analysis based on the PSM-DID method," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 930-938.
    17. Mo, Jianlei & Tu, Qiang & Wang, Jianing, 2023. "Carbon pricing and enterprise productivity-The role of price stabilization mechanism," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    18. Zhang, Jiekuan, 2023. "Emissions trading scheme and energy consumption and output structure: Evidence from China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P1).
    19. Xie, Ronghui & Teo, Thompson S.H., 2022. "Green technology innovation, environmental externality, and the cleaner upgrading of industrial structure in China — Considering the moderating effect of environmental regulation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    20. Chen, Zhongfei & Zhang, Xiao & Chen, Fanglin, 2021. "Do carbon emission trading schemes stimulate green innovation in enterprises? Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    21. Hong, Qianqian & Cui, Linhao & Hong, Penghui, 2022. "The impact of carbon emissions trading on energy efficiency: Evidence from quasi-experiment in China's carbon emissions trading pilot," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    22. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    23. Zhang, Weijie & Zhang, Ning & Yu, Yanni, 2019. "Carbon mitigation effects and potential cost savings from carbon emissions trading in China's regional industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1-11.
    24. Wang, Bo & Wang, Jianda & Dong, Kangyin & Dong, Xiucheng, 2023. "Is the digital economy conducive to the development of renewable energy in Asia?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    25. Carmichael, David G. & Ballouz, Joseph J. & Balatbat, Maria C.A., 2015. "Improving the attractiveness of CDM projects through allowing and incorporating options," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 784-791.
    26. Jiang, Hong-Dian & Liu, Li-Jing & Dong, Kangyin & Fu, Yu-Wei, 2022. "How will sectoral coverage in the carbon trading system affect the total oil consumption in China? A CGE-based analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    27. J. H. Dales, 1968. "Land, Water, and Ownership," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 791-804, November.
    28. Yi, Ming & Liu, Yafen & Sheng, Mingyue Selena & Wen, Le, 2022. "Effects of digital economy on carbon emission reduction: New evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    29. Bin Duan & Xuanming Ji, 2021. "Can Carbon Finance Optimize Land Use Efficiency? The Example of China’s Carbon Emissions Trading Policy," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, September.
    30. Wang, Hai & Ye, Shuai & Chen, Hui & Yin, Junya, 2023. "The impact of carbon emission trading policy on overcapacity of companies: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    31. Eric V. Edmonds & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Trade Adjustment and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Indian Tariff Reform," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 42-75, October.
    32. Zhang, Wei & Li, Guoxiang & Guo, Fanyong, 2022. "Does carbon emissions trading promote green technology innovation in China?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    33. Yanbin Li & Min Wu & Zhen Li, 2018. "A Real Options Analysis for Renewable Energy Investment Decisions under China Carbon Trading Market," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-10, July.
    34. Claudia Kettner & Angela Köppl & Stefan P. Schleicher & Gregor Thenius, 2008. "Stringency and distribution in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme: first evidence," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 41-61, January.
    35. Ma, Wanglin & Zheng, Hongyun & Gong, Binlei, 2022. "Rural income growth, ethnic differences, and household cooking fuel choice: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    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. Xiaoqi Li & Dingfei Guo & Chao Feng, 2022. "The Carbon Emissions Trading Policy of China: Does It Really Promote the Enterprises’ Green Technology Innovations?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-15, November.
    2. Zhang, Guidong & Wang, Jianlong & Liu, Yong, 2024. "“Carbon” suppresses “energy” - How does carbon emission right trading policy alleviate the energy trilemma?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    3. Zhang, Jiekuan, 2023. "Emissions trading scheme and energy consumption and output structure: Evidence from China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P1).
    4. Hu, Jun & Zhang, Siyu & Wang, Liang & Yao, Daifei, 2024. "Carbon emission trading scheme, investors’ attention, and earnings response coefficients," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    5. Liu, Hongwei & Chen, Qiaoqiao & Song, Yanwu, 2025. "Does the carbon emissions trading scheme promote green technology innovation? New evidence from Chinese cities," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1045-1057.
    6. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Wang, Wei, 2021. "How does China's carbon emissions trading (CET) policy affect the investment of CET-covered enterprises?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    7. Liu, Yunqiang & Liu, Sha & Shao, Xiaoyu & He, Yanqiu, 2022. "Policy spillover effect and action mechanism for environmental rights trading on green innovation: Evidence from China's carbon emissions trading policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    8. Huang, Xuhui & Zhou, Tao & Zhang, Ning, 2025. "How does the carbon market influence the marginal abatement cost? Evidence from China's coal-fired power plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 378(PA).
    9. Dian, Jie & Song, Tian & Li, Shenglan, 2024. "Facilitating or inhibiting? Spatial effects of the digital economy affecting urban green technology innovation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    10. Xu, Xiaofeng & Cui, Xiaodan & Chen, Xiangyu & Zhou, Yichen, 2022. "Impact of government subsidies on the innovation performance of the photovoltaic industry: Based on the moderating effect of carbon trading prices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    11. Li, Haichao & Su, Yuqi & Ding, Chante Jian & Tian, Gary Gang & Wu, Zhan, 2024. "Unveiling the green innovation paradox: Exploring the impact of carbon emission reduction on corporate green technology innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    12. Sun, Chuanwang & Zhan, Yanhong & Du, Gang, 2020. "Can value-added tax incentives of new energy industry increase firm's profitability? Evidence from financial data of China's listed companies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    13. Huang, Chenchen & Lin, Boqiang, 2024. "Digital economy solutions towards carbon neutrality: The critical role of energy efficiency and energy structure transformation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(C).
    14. Huang, Hongyun & Mbanyele, William & Wang, Fengrong & Song, Malin & Wang, Yuzhang, 2022. "Climbing the quality ladder of green innovation: Does green finance matter?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    15. Huang, Zhi-xiong & Yang, Xiandong, 2021. "Carbon emissions and firm innovation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 503-513.
    16. Yu, Jian & Liu, Peng & Shi, Xunpeng & Ai, Xianneng, 2023. "China’s emissions trading scheme, firms’ R&D investment and emissions reduction," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1021-1037.
    17. Zhou, Xiaoxiao & Zhao, Yongan & Chen, Dengsheng, 2025. "Emissions trading scheme's effect on enterprises' sustainable development in China: A differential game and a quasi-natural experiment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    18. Liu, Ying & Feng, Chao, 2023. "Promoting renewable energy through national energy legislation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    19. Yunqing Zhao & Debao Dai & Wei Shao & Liang Ye, 2024. "Can the Carbon Trading Policy Enhance Resource Allocation Efficiency?—An Analysis of the Synergistic Effect of Market Mechanism and Government Intervention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-24, November.
    20. Dong, Kangyin & Liu, Yang & Wang, Jianda & Dong, Xiucheng, 2024. "Is the digital economy an effective tool for decreasing energy vulnerability? A global case," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:1670-1689. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    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.