Research on the CRE of China’s Carbon Trading Pilot Policy

In this paper, the empirical analysis was carried out by DID model based on the panel data of 294 cities from 2006 to 2019, exploring the carbon reduction effects (CRE) under the policy of China’s trading pilot. The results are yielded as follows: The overall CRE of China’s carbon trading pilot policy is significant and it includes both “policy effect” (triggered by corresponding actions taken by those enterprises due to the market mechanism) and “subject effect” (triggered by local governments’ administrative interference due to the Hawthorne Effect). Also, the results show a fact that the CRE may not meet the emission expectation to the degree of pilot period when the policy is promoted to a comprehensive level. In fact, carbon trading policy has formed a relatively stable emission-cost expectation for the emission enterprises, and the enterprises can achieve carbon emission reduction by improving green technology innovation and reducing energy consumption intensity.