The Impact of Carbon Trading Policies on Technological Innovation in Chemical Enterprises

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-598-5_28How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Carbon Trading Policy; Chemical Enterprises; Multi-period Difference-in-Differences; Technological Innovation

Abstract

As a pivotal market-based environmental instrument, carbon trading policy plays a significant role in driving the green transformation of the chemical industry. Grounded in New Institutional Economics, the Porter Hypothesis, and Decoupling Theory, this study utilizes a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model and panel data from 308 listed chemical firms (2009–2023) to evaluate the policy’s causal effect on technological innovation. The results indicate that the policy raises the overall level of technological innovation by 13.5%on average; however, this effect is entirely driven by non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs), with no significant impact observed in state-owned firms (SOEs). Further mechanism analysis reveals that non-SOEs respond to the policy mainly through cost constraints and market incentives, whereas SOEs tend to rely on purchasing quotas, which suppresses their innovation motivation. Moreover, the increase in institutional shareholding is identified as a key channel through which the policy spurs innovation in non-SOEs. The application of computational methods in this study also enhances the accuracy and robustness of the empirical evaluation. Based on these findings, policy recommendations are proposed, including optimizing quota allocation mechanisms, linking emission-innovation performance with subsidy incentives for SOEs, and establishing technology sharing platforms to support non-SOEs.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yiqing Li
AU  - Nanjin Zhang
AU  - Shiwei Wu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - The Impact of Carbon Trading Policies on Technological Innovation in Chemical Enterprises
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 6th  International Conference on Big Data and Social Sciences (ICBDSS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 287
EP  - 297
SN  - 2352-538X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-598-5_28
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-598-5_28
ID  - Li2026
ER  -