Can Carbon Emissions Trading Pilot Policies Increase New Quality Productive Forces in Cities

Empirical Evidence from Panel Data of Chinese Cities

Abstract

New quality  productive  forces is an important driving force for high-quality development, and it is worthwhile to pay attention to whether the pilot carbon emissions trading policy, as a key environmental regulatory tool for realizing the goal of “dual-carbon”, can be an effective promoter for cultivating new quality  productive  forces. Based on the panel data of 256 Chinese cities from 2009 to 2021, this study treats the carbon emissions trading pilot as a quasi-natural experimental design, and applies double-difference models to assess the impact of the policy on the new quality  productive  forces of cities, and systematically analyzes its transmission path, heterogeneous characteristics and spatial effects. The empirical results show that the pilot carbon emissions trading program significantly improves the level of new quality  productive  forces in cities; the mechanism test shows that the policy promotes the development of green finance, industrial structure upgrading, and green technological innovation through three paths; the heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of the policy is particularly significant in the cities of the western part of the country, which are of higher administrative level, non-resource-dependent, and with a solid foundation of innovation, and with a higher degree of maturity of the development of NPRO; the spatial double-difference test reveals the significant effect of the policy on the development of the city. The spatial double difference test reveals that the policy has a positive spillover effect on neighboring cities. This study reveals the mechanism of carbon emissions trading policy on NPRO from the theoretical level, and provides a decision-making basis for optimizing the effectiveness of policy implementation and innovating the development path of productivity.