As the main body of energy consumption and carbon emissions in China, whether high-energy-consuming enterprises can implement the green development concept and practice green and low-carbon development is not only related to enterprise competition, survival, and sustainable development, but also of great strategic significance for achieving the “double carbon” goals and advancing Chinese-style modernization. Green electricity pricing can internalize the external costs of energy consumption through price mechanisms and may become an effective pathway for high-energy-consuming enterprises to save energy and reduce carbon emissions. Specifically, the differential electricity pricing policy, guided by the process energy consumption of production equipment, implements higher electricity prices for restricted and phased-out enterprises in eight high-energy-consuming industries, forcing these enterprises to eliminate backward production capacity and improve the energy efficiency of production equipment, which is likely to reduce enterprise carbon emissions. However, the existing literature lacks assessment of the carbon emission reduction effect of the differential electricity pricing policy.
Using panel data of Chinese high-energy-consuming enterprises from 2001 to 2009, this study constructs a multi-period difference-in-differences model to systematically evaluate the impact of the differential electricity pricing policy on enterprise carbon emissions and its mechanisms. The research findings indicate that the differential electricity pricing policy can significantly promote carbon emission reduction in high-energy-consuming enterprises, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of validity and robustness tests. Energy efficiency improvement, capital renewal, and product restructuring are the main transmission mechanisms through which the differential electricity pricing policy promotes enterprise carbon emission reduction. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon emission reduction effect of the differential electricity pricing policy is more pronounced in regions with strong environmental law enforcement, high power shortage levels, and no preferential electricity pricing, as well as in capital-intensive enterprises and those receiving government subsidies. Further analysis shows that the differential electricity pricing policy can promote carbon emission reduction at the macro level through resource reallocation among enterprises and achieve carbon emission reduction in upstream enterprises through industrial chain transmission. Meanwhile, the differential electricity pricing policy also contributes to the coordinated development of carbon reduction and pollution mitigation in enterprises.
The marginal contributions of this study are as follows. First, while previous studies mostly focus on the impacts of traditional environmental regulatory policies on carbon emissions, this paper innovatively examines the impact of the differential electricity pricing policy on enterprise carbon emissions and its mechanisms, providing empirical evidence for the evaluation of green electricity pricing policy. Second, this paper uses the differential electricity pricing policy to represent green electricity pricing, effectively avoiding the data deficiency problem regarding resource and environmental prices in previous studies. Moreover, by employing a difference-in-differences model for policy effect evaluation, this study greatly mitigates the potential endogenous problems in the model, thereby improving the accuracy of model estimation and the reliability of policy effect evaluation. Third, this study further evaluates the carbon emission reduction effect of the differential electricity pricing policy based on resource reallocation and industrial chain transmission paths, and systematically assesses the synergistic effects of carbon reduction, pollution mitigation, and efficiency enhancement of the differential electricity pricing policy, thereby deepening the comprehensive understanding of green resource and environmental pricing.
This study is expected to provide empirical references and decision-making basis for government departments to further promote and improve green electricity pricing policies, accelerate the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, and construct a high-quality modernized economic system.
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