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This study investigates the carbon compensation mechanism as a tool to promote coordinated economic and environmental development in China's Jing-Jin-Ji region (Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei). A novel approach for calculating carbon compensation cost that integrate emission responsibility as well as carbon abatement cost through a bi-level programming model is proposed. Shared producer and consumer responsibility is established for carbon emissions under the multi-regional input-output model. Marginal abatement costs of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei are further calculated through the input-output and linear programming method. Results highlight that the emission responsibility allocation method significantly affects the inter-regional carbon compensation amount. The production-based approach leads to a 77% reduction of carbon compensation amount from Beijing to Hebei, and a 170% overestimation from Tianjin to Hebei compared with the shared responsibility approach in 2060. The optimal carbon compensation unit cost ranges from 1539 to 6438 yuan/ton when the carbon reduction ratio ranges from 10% to 20%. Beijing would compensate Hebei 3.56 and 29.74 billion yuan for achieving 10% and 20% emission reduction, respectively. Similarly, Tianjin's compensation for Hebei would be 0.23 and 1.87 billion yuan in the two scenarios. Results further show that implementing the proposed carbon compensation mechanism can reduce total abatement cost by 43% and 84% in Jing-Jin-Ji under the two scenarios. The methods and results of this paper could help inform future carbon compensation implementation in China and other countries. • Develop a bi-level programming model to determine optimal carbon compensation cost. • Consider emission responsibility and carbon abatement cost in Jing-Jin-Ji. • Resulting mechanism reduces abatement cost by 43% for 10% emission reduction. • Production-based allocation underestimates carbon compensation amount by 62%. • Optimal carbon compensation unit cost changes with marginal abatement cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]