IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v83y2025ics1544612325008761.html

Can the carbon emissions trading policy promote the development of new quality productive forces in manufacturing enterprises?

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Jianhua
  • Wang, Xiaodi
  • Zhang, Weihua
  • Wang, Lizhi

Abstract

Employing panel data from Chinese manufacturing enterprises spanning 2011–2022 and a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) framework, this study reveals the causal effects of China’s carbon emissions trading policy. Specifically, the policy significantly enhances the development of new quality productive forces within manufacturing enterprises by boosting green technology innovation. The main effect is more pronounced in enterprises with low pollution levels and those located in eastern China. Clearly, the carbon emissions trading policy functions as a pivotal instrument for fostering structural transformation toward advanced productivity systems in the manufacturing sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Jianhua & Wang, Xiaodi & Zhang, Weihua & Wang, Lizhi, 2025. "Can the carbon emissions trading policy promote the development of new quality productive forces in manufacturing enterprises?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:83:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325008761
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.107617
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325008761
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.107617?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. Frondel, Manuel & Ritter, Nolan & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Vance, Colin, 2010. "Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energy technologies: The German experience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4048-4056, August.
    2. Qiao, Penghua & Liu, Siting & Fung, Hung-Gay & Wang, Chen, 2024. "Corporate green innovation in a digital economy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 870-883.
    3. 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).
    4. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    5. Ouyang, Xiaoling & Li, Qiong & Du, Kerui, 2020. "How does environmental regulation promote technological innovations in the industrial sector? Evidence from Chinese provincial panel data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    6. Xie, Rong-hui & Yuan, Yi-jun & Huang, Jing-jing, 2017. "Different Types of Environmental Regulations and Heterogeneous Influence on “Green” Productivity: Evidence from China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 104-112.
    7. Junming Zhu & Yichun Fan & Xinghua Deng & Lan Xue, 2019. "Low-carbon innovation induced by emissions trading in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-8, December.
    8. Zhang, Weiwei & Xi, Bin, 2024. "The effect of carbon emission trading on enterprises’ sustainable development performance: A quasi-natural experiment based on carbon emission trading pilot in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    9. Sklyar, Alexey & Kowalkowski, Christian & Tronvoll, Bård & Sörhammar, David, 2019. "Organizing for digital servitization: A service ecosystem perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 450-460.
    10. Xu, Le & Fan, Meiting & Yang, Lili & Shao, Shuai, 2021. "Heterogeneous green innovations and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    11. Chao Li & Xiangyou Li & Deyong Song & Meng Tian, 2022. "Does a carbon emissions trading scheme spur urban green innovation? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Energy & Environment, , vol. 33(4), pages 640-662, June.
    12. David Popp, 2002. "Induced Innovation and Energy Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 160-180, March.
    13. Rui Zhu & Liyu Long & Yinghua Gong, 2022. "Emission Trading System, Carbon Market Efficiency, and Corporate Innovations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-22, August.
    14. Lawrence H. Goulder & Ian W. H. Parry, 2008. "Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(2), pages 152-174, Summer.
    15. Guo, Jiaqi & Li, Changhong, 2024. "Does China's carbon emissions trading policy improve enterprise green innovation?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(PB).
    16. Xue, Qing & Liu, Xiangqin, 2024. "Can digital finance boost corporate green innovation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PB).
    17. 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.
    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. Li, Zhuan & Liu, Jie, 2025. "Low-carbon transition, financial constraints and enterprises' new quality productive forces," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PC).

    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. Li, Kai & Qi, Shouzhou & Shi, Xunpeng, 2023. "Environmental policies and low-carbon industrial upgrading: Heterogenous effects among policies, sectors, and technologies in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Mai, Yirui & Yu, Kaidong & Zhang, Xuan, 2024. "Enhancing corporate carbon performance through green innovation and digital transformation: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB).
    3. Li, Kai & Yan, Yaxue & Zhang, Xiaoling, 2021. "Carbon-abatement policies, investment preferences, and directed technological change: Evidence from China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    4. 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).
    5. Liu, Duan & Yu, Nizhou & Wan, Hong, 2022. "Does water rights trading affect corporate investment? The role of resource allocation and risk mitigation channels," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    6. Xu, Le & Yang, Lili & Li, Ding & Shao, Shuai, 2023. "Asymmetric effects of heterogeneous environmental standards on green technology innovation: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Zhang, Wei & Li, Guoxiang & Guo, Fanyong, 2022. "Does carbon emissions trading promote green technology innovation in China?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    8. Gu, Guangtong & Zheng, Haorong & Tong, Lingyun & Dai, Yaxian, 2022. "Does carbon financial market as an environmental regulation policy tool promote regional energy conservation and emission reduction? Empirical evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Hu, Jinyan & Wang, Kai-Hua & Su, Chi Wei & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Oil price, green innovation and institutional pressure: A China's perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    10. Ni, Xiaoran & Jin, Qi & Huang, Kunhao, 2022. "Environmental regulation and the cost of debt: Evidence from the carbon emission trading system pilot in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    11. Li, Shuangmei & Zhu, Xuehong & Zhang, Tao, 2023. "Optimum combination of heterogeneous environmental policy instruments and market for green transformation: Empirical evidence from China's metal sector," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    12. Ruijie Tian & Li Chen & Xiaojun Yang, 2025. "Towards green progress: an empirical analysis of the Chinese emission trading pilot schemes and technological innovations," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 29(4), pages 727-765, December.
    13. Lu Zheng & Yuhuan Zhao & Jingzhi Zhu & Zhiling Qian & Ziyi Zhao & Shunan Fan, 2025. "Could carbon emissions trading scheme improve total factor carbon emissions performance? Evidence from cities of China," Energy & Environment, , vol. 36(1), pages 391-424, February.
    14. Song, Wenfei & Han, Xianfeng & Liu, Qiange, 2024. "Patterns of environmental regulation and green innovation in China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 176-192.
    15. 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).
    16. Bi, Qian & Feng, Shi & Qu, Tianli & Ye, Peixi & Liu, Zhiyu, 2024. "Is the green innovation under the pressure of new environmental protection law of PRC substantive green innovation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    17. Zhou, Fengxiu & Wang, Xiaoyu, 2022. "The carbon emissions trading scheme and green technology innovation in China: A new structural economics perspective," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 365-381.
    18. Tan, Ruipeng & Cai, Qijun & Pan, Lulu, 2024. "Faking for fortune: Emissions trading schemes and corporate greenwashing in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    19. 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).
    20. Rausch, Sebastian & Yonezawa, Hidemichi, 2023. "Green technology policies versus carbon pricing: An intergenerational perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(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:83:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325008761. 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.