碳价是否降低了碳排放？——基于中国碳排放交易试点省市的实证研究

Has Carbon Price Reduced Carbon Emissions?—Empirical Study on Pilot Provinces and Cities for Carbon Emission Trading in China

摘要: 基于面板门槛模型，采用2014~2021年中国试点碳排放市场省市级面板数据，实证检验了碳价对碳排放的影响存在单一门槛，即碳价对碳排放的影响随着经济发展水平的变化呈现两段不同程度的负相关。当经济发展水平较低时，碳价的变动对企业的影响最为明显，高排放企业会通过加大低碳技术创新力度等手段，来把碳排放控制到一定的限额内，以减少额外的“罚款”，同时多余的碳排放配额也可以放到碳交易市场出售，来获得额外的“收益”。当经济发展水平高于一定的门槛值时，碳价对碳排放的抑制作用相对减弱，可能原因是碳价会随着经济发展水平的升高而升高，较高的碳价给高排放行业带来了较大的经营成本，从而导致在某些方面存在碳减排处理不达标等问题。

Abstract: Based on the panel threshold model, using the provincial and municipal Panel data of China’s pilot carbon emission market from 2014 to 2021, this paper empirically tests that there is a single threshold for the impact of carbon price on carbon emissions, that is, the impact of carbon price on carbon emissions presents two different levels of negative correlation with the change of economic development level. When the level of economic development is low, the change of carbon price has the most obvious impact on enterprises. High emission enterprises will control carbon emissions to a certain limit by increasing low-carbon technological innovation and other means to reduce additional “fines”. At the same time, the excess carbon emission quota can also be sold in the carbon emission trading market to obtain additional “gains”. When the level of economic development exceeds a certain threshold, the inhibitory effect of carbon prices on carbon emissions is relatively weakened. This may be due to the fact that carbon prices will rise with the increase of economic development level. Higher carbon prices bring significant operating costs to high emission industries, leading to problems such as substandard carbon emission reduction treatment in some aspects.