Carbon emission trading scheme and corporate financialization: Evidence from China

To achieve the carbon goals, the Chinese government initially implemented the carbon ETS in 2013 in 7 pilot provinces and cities. Using the firm-level financial and management data of the A-share listed companies in the 30 provinces of mainland China from 2008 to 2020, this paper examines the ETS impact on corporate financialization by constructing a DID model. The result supports the “crowd-out” effect that the implementation of ETS decreases corporate financialization and this negative impact is weaker on the state-owned firms, located in the eastern region of China, and are not in the manufacturing industry. These findings imply that other than the original target to reduce carbon emissions, the ETS, by its market-based nature, is effective in reducing the risk of over-financialization.