IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v74y2025ics1544612325000625.html

Fostering green technological innovation through carbon emission trading policies

Author

Listed:
  • Hu, Feifei
  • Chang, Huibin
  • Wang, Dongxue
  • Chen, Xiaowei

Abstract

This study examines the impact of carbon emission trading policies on promoting green technological innovation among A-share listed companies in China between 2007 and 2022. The results reveal that the enforcement and strict implementation of these policies have notably encouraged companies to engage in exploratory efforts and pursue innovations in green development patents. Furthermore, these policies have eased financing constraints for businesses, enabling them to allocate more resources to advancing green technology. It is worth noting that the effect is particularly significant in non-heavy polluting industries, greatly facilitating their shift towards environmentally friendly technological innovations.

Suggested Citation

  • Hu, Feifei & Chang, Huibin & Wang, Dongxue & Chen, Xiaowei, 2025. "Fostering green technological innovation through carbon emission trading policies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:74:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325000625
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.106797
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325000625
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.106797?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. Yinpeng Zhang & Ying Chen & You Wu & Panpan Zhu, 2022. "Investor attention and carbon return: evidence from the EU-ETS," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 709-727, December.
    2. Liu, Menghe & Li, Yuxiao, 2022. "Environmental regulation and green innovation: Evidence from China's carbon emissions trading policy," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    3. 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).
    4. Kong, Dongmin & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Jian, 2022. "Higher education and corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Hu, Hui & Qi, Shaozhou & Chen, Yuanzhi, 2023. "Using green technology for a better tomorrow: How enterprises and government utilize the carbon trading system and incentive policies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Zhang, Shengling & Wang, Yao & Hao, Yu & Liu, Zhiwei, 2021. "Shooting two hawks with one arrow: Could China's emission trading scheme promote green development efficiency and regional carbon equality?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. 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).
    8. Yan Zhou & Xin-Tong Lin & Zhi-Ping Fan & Kar-Hung Wong, 2022. "Remanufacturing Strategy Choice of a Closed-Loop Supply Chain Network Considering Carbon Emission Trading, Green Innovation, and Green Consumers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-42, June.
    9. Yan Wu & Chunlai Chen & Cong Hu, 2021. "Does the Belt and Road Initiative Increase the Carbon Emission Intensity of Participating Countries?," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 29(3), pages 1-25, May.
    10. Luu Trong Tuan, 2023. "Fostering green product innovation through green entrepreneurial orientation: The roles of employee green creativity, green role identity, and organizational transactive memory system," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 639-653, January.
    11. Hongxin Yu & Yaohui Jiang & Zhaowen Zhang & Wen-Long Shang & Chunjia Han & Yuanjun Zhao, 2022. "The impact of carbon emission trading policy on firms’ green innovation in China," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, December.
    12. Zhaoyang Zhao & Shuning Zhou & Siying Wang & Chong Ye & Tuolei Wu, 2022. "The Impact of Carbon Emissions Trading Pilot Policy on Industrial Structure Upgrading," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-25, August.
    13. Zhouzhou Lin & Dezhi Liang & Shengnan Li, 2022. "Environmental Regulation and Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from China’s Heavily Polluting Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-18, September.
    14. Chenggang Wang & Tiansen Liu & Yue Zhu & Meng Lin & Wenhao Chang & Xinyu Wang & Dongrong Li & He Wang & Jinsol Yoo, 2022. "Digital Economy, Environmental Regulation and Corporate Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-18, October.
    15. Hou, Xiang & Hu, Qianlin & Liang, Xin & Xu, Jingxuan, 2023. "How do low-carbon city pilots affect carbon emissions? Staggered difference in difference evidence from Chinese firms," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 664-686.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Songyi & Fan, Qianqian, 2025. "Can market-based environmental regulation promote corporate intelligent transformation: Evidence from the carbon emission trading system," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    2. Qin, Teng & Qin, Chuan & Wang, Jiaxin & Xing, Haiyan, 2025. "Can the digital economy enhance enterprises' breakthrough innovation?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 104(PA).
    3. Fang Cheng & Shuang Yang & Yanli Wang, 2025. "Green Innovation or Expedient Compliance: Carbon Emission Reduction by Heavily Polluting Enterprises Under Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zone," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-24, July.
    4. Zheng, Ye & Bao, Xuhan & Zhao, Shijie, 2025. "Renewable energy policy and environmental governance performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    5. Liao, Liyi & Zhou, Yongbin, 2025. "Environmental regulation intensity, models, and technological innovation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PE).
    6. Han, Pengcheng & Wang, Shumin, 2025. "Does financial uncertainty reduce carbon emission reduction performance? Evidence from China’s manufacturing industry," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PE).

    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. Peng, Shengnan & Liu, Chan & Wang, Ze & Ye, Zihan & Sun, Xialing & Tan, Zhanglu, 2024. "The impact of the carbon reduction policy effectiveness on energy companies' ESG performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    2. Zhao, Tianzhen & Ke, Haiqian & Zhang, Ning, 2025. "Comparing the innovation impacts on firms: Pilot vs. National Carbon Emission Trading Schemes in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 377(PB).
    3. Zhang, Caiping & Liu, Falong & Wu, Dawei & Tan, Deming & Niu, Linping, 2025. "The impact of the carbon emissions trading scheme on corporate strategic deviance in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    4. Sun, Yuliang & Han, Mingfeng, 2025. "Does globalized R&D promote corporate innovation?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Zhang, Tao & Tian, Jie, 2025. "Dual transformation of family businesses under China's dual carbon goals: Exploring social impact and economic benefits," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    6. Gong, Zhongyi & He, Pei & Sun, Yuyang, 2025. "Social governance, financial regulation, and corporate investment efficiency," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Li, Yilong & Huang, Yongjian & Sheng, Jie, 2025. "Policy-driven energy transition: China's low-carbon journey and global implications," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    8. Ma, Cuijun & Peng, Donghui, 2025. "Government subsidies, environmental costs, and green innovation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    9. Wang, Danting & Sun, Yemeng, 2025. "Impact of green finance incentive policies on China's carbon neutrality capability: An evaluation based on the difference-in-differences model," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    10. 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).
    11. Sun, Cong & Zeng, Fangyu, 2025. "Can the improvement of judicial quality optimize the business environment in the region? A study based on the moderating effect of financial technology development," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Wan, Min & Wei, Dedai & Yu, Chenming, 2025. "Low-carbon pilot cities and financialization of listed companies: Inhibitory effects and policy analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. Wang, Jingru & Liu, Tinghua & Aziz, Noshaba & Sui, Hongguang, 2024. "Exploring the role of trade credit in facilitating low-carbon development: Insights from Chinese enterprises," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    14. He, Yan & Lin, Chen, 2025. "Dynamic impact of media coverage on corporate risk management: Moderating effect of environmental policies and heterogeneity analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    15. Wang, Bo & Gong, Siyu & Yang, Yang, 2024. "Unveiling the relation between digital technology and low-carbon innovation: Carbon emission trading policy as an antecedent," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    16. Gao, Jie & Hu, Wenxiu, 2025. "Investor attention, corporate technology investment, and green innovation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    17. Wang, Juling & Liu, Lihua & Ou, Yangchao, 2024. "Low-carbon city pilot policy and corporate environmental violations: Evidence from heavily polluting firms in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    18. Chen, Songyi & Fan, Qianqian, 2025. "Can market-based environmental regulation promote corporate intelligent transformation: Evidence from the carbon emission trading system," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    19. Li, Donghui & Zhang, Zhanxiang & Gao, Xin, 2025. "The impact of carbon emission trading system on the implied cost of equity capital," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    20. Wang, Dongjing & Yong, Chen & Wang, David (Han) & Tian, Grace (Li), 2025. "Synergistic effects and mechanisms of green financial reform, environmental regulation intensity, and regional green innovation levels," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(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:finlet:v:74:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325000625. 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.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    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.