Does Carbon Emissions Trading Promote The Technological Progress Of Enterprises?

The problem of environmental pollution has attracted the attention of all countries in the world,and global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions(especially carbon dioxide)has become an important issue threatening the sustainable development of mankind and needs to be resolved urgently.In order to give full play to the role of the market to reduce carbon dioxide emissions,in October 2011,the NDRC issued the Notice,which formally approved the transfer of 7 cities in Beijing,Shanghai,Guangdong,Shenzhen,Hubei,Chongqing and Tianjin.In 2013,7 pilot provinces and cities successively began to implement carbon emissions trading.China’s economy has entered a new normal,economic growth is slowing,and economic growth is turning to innovation-driven.In this case,we should further investigate the impact of policies on the technological progress of enterprises on the basis of paying attention to the emission reduction effects of carbon emissions trading policies.In order to study whether the carbon emission trading policy has promoted the progress of production technology and pollution control technology of enterprises,and to test the heterogeneous impact of the policy on enterprises of different sizes and different natures,this article uses the data of all A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2018(because the patent data of listed companies after 2018 is incomplete,so the research time is up to 2018),takes the pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment,uses the data envelopment analysis(DEA)-based Malmquist productivity index method to measure the production technology of all listed companies in the sample,uses the number of corporate green patent applications to measure the company’s pollution control technology progress,and divides green patents into green invention patents and green utility model patents,and builds DDD model to test the impact of carbon emission trading pilot policies on the progress of enterprise production technology and pollution control technology,a series of robustness tests and heterogeneity tests were finally carried out.Research shows:First,the carbon emission trading policy has significantly promoted the progress of production technology and pollution control technology of enterprises.Second,the implementation of carbon emissions trading policies will have different impacts on companies of different sizes and of different natures.Research on companies of different scales found that carbon emission trading policies have a significant role in promoting the production technology progress of companies of all sizes,but it has a greater role in promoting larger companies.Regarding the impact on pollution control technology,the policy only promotes the progress of pollution control technology of larger enterprises,and can further promote the increase in the number of green invention patent applications.Research on enterprises with different ownerships found that the policy has no significant impact on the production technology progress of state-owned enterprises,but has a significant positive effect on the production technology progress of non-state-owned enterprises.But as far as pollution control technology is concerned,the carbon emission trading policy has only significantly promoted the progress of pollution control technology of state-owned enterprises,and it can also promote the application of green invention patents by state-owned enterprises.Third,research on the mechanism of action shows that:first,carbon emissions trading policies can improve the company’s productivity and pollution control technologies by increasing the company’s expected profits;second,carbon emissions trading policies can improve the efficiency of resource allocation.To promote the progress of production technology and pollution control technology of larger enterprises.The findings of this paper can provide experience support for China to open up the national carbon emission trading market.