Ziyuan Kexue (Aug 2023)
The impact of carbon emission rights trading on enterprise capacity utilization:Evidence from eight pilot industries
Abstract
[Objective] Overcapacity not only hinders the sustainable development of enterprises, but also is one of the sources of systemic risks in the economy. Examining whether carbon emission rights trading can improve capacity utilization of enterprises under the background of achieving the “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” goals and thereby facilitate overcapacity control is of great significance for realizing environmental protection and high-quality economic development. [Methods] Based on the quasi-natural experiment of carbon emission rights trading pilots, panel data of A-share listed companies in eight pilot industries in Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2020 were chosen as samples and capacity utilization of enterprises was estimated through stochastic frontier approach. The effects of carbon emission rights trading on capacity utilization of enterprises were investigated by the difference-in-differences method. The relevant action mechanism and heterogeneity of policy effects were analyzed thoroughly. [Results] The findings are as follows: (1) Compared with enterprises in non-pilot areas, carbon trading can improve the capacity utilization of enterprises in pilot areas and thus help alleviate overcapacity of enterprises. The empirical results are still significant after robustness tests such as parallel trend and using alternative variables. (2) Carbon emission rights trading inhibits over-investment and stimulate technological innovation of enterprises through investment mechanism and innovation mechanism, thus improving capacity utilization of enterprises. (3) There was a heterogeneity in the impact of carbon emission trading on the capacity utilization rate of enterprises. Compared with state-owned enterprises, large-scale enterprises, and enterprises in the central and western regions, carbon emission rights trading had a greater effect on capacity utilization of non-state-owned enterprises, small-sized enterprises, and enterprises in eastern China. [Conclusion] This study evaluated the role of carbon emission trading in promoting the capacity utilization rate of enterprises, which is conducive to further deepening the supply-side reform, and provides a reference for the continuous promotion of the economic development model combining carbon emission reduction and high-quality development of enterprises. In order to achieve the goals of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”, the carbon emission trading system should be further improved to stimulate the enthusiasm of enterprises to transform and upgrade, and timely inclusion of more high-carbon emission industries in the national carbon emission trading market should be encouraged to promote sustainable environmental and economic development.
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