Search

To achieve the goal of carbon reduction, China has been piloting the Carbon Emission Trading System (CETS) since 2013. As the economy faces a downward trend, it is significant to explore the impact of CETS on business development. There is still debate in academia about whether this policy can boost the level of business development. This paper, based on all A-share data of listed companies in China from 2009 to 2018, uses the Difference in Differences (DID) model to verify the impact of CETS on the input of capital and labor factors and the level of technology in enterprises and discusses the industry heterogeneity of this impact in detail. Placebo tests, propensity score matching, and triple differences ensure the robustness of the conclusions. In further research, this paper decomposes the policy effect of CETS. It regresses the impact of carbon quota prices and carbon market trading scale on business development. The final conclusion is that CETS has a positive impact on the input of capital and labor in enterprises and a negative impact on the level of technology. After distinguishing industries, this conclusion shows differences according to different characteristics of high emissions and low emissions. In addition, the increase in carbon quota prices hinders business development, while the scale of carbon market trading shows an inverted "U" relationship with business development. The article provides meaningful policy references for China and countries in the early stages of CETS construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using sample firms from eight energy-intensive industries included in the State Council of China's Notice on the Pilot Work of Carbon Emission Trading from 2015 to 2019, this study examines the relationship between environmental legitimacy pressure and impression management of carbon information disclosure, and explores the moderating effect of political connection on this relationship. The baseline results show that environmental legitimacy pressure is positively associated with impression management of carbon information disclosure, and political connection moderates this relationship, that is, the positive association between environmental legitimacy pressure and impression management of carbon information disclosure in politically-connected firms is stronger than that in non-politically-connected firms. The results are robust to various sensitivity tests. Further analyses show that (i) the positive association between environmental legitimacy pressure and impression management of carbon information disclosure in non-state owned enterprises (non-SOEs) is stronger than that in SOEs, (ii) firms facing higher negative environmental legitimacy pressure have stronger motivation to conduct impression management of carbon information disclosure, (iii) firms facing environmental legitimacy pressure conduct both selective disclosure and expressive manipulation but they have stronger motivation to conduct expressive manipulation. This study extends the literature on impression management of carbon information disclosure. The findings in this study provide policy implications not only for China but also for countries with large carbon emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]