Reduction Effect of Carbon Emission Trading Policy in Decreasing PM 2.5 Concentrations in China

Zhixiong Weng, Cuiyun Cheng (), Yang Xie () and Hao Ma
Additional contact information
Zhixiong Weng: Institute of Circular Economy, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Cuiyun Cheng: Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, Beijing 100045, China
Yang Xie: School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Hao Ma: BGRIMM Technology Group, Beijing 100160, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 23, 1-12

Abstract: Carbon emissions trading is a market-based tool for solving environmental issues. This study used a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to estimate China’s carbon trading pilots to reduce PM 2.5 concentrations. The results of this quasi-natural experiment show that the carbon trading policy effectively reduces PM 2.5 by 2.7 μg/m 3 . We used a propensity score matching (PSM-DID) method to minimize selection bias to construct a treatment and a control group. The results show the policy effect is robust, with a PM 2.5 concentration reduction of 2.6 μg/m 3 . Furthermore, we employed a series of robustness checks to support our findings, which notably indicate that the effect of carbon trading on reducing PM 2.5 differs across regions over the years. The western region of China tends to be the most easily affected region, and the early years of carbon trading show slightly greater reduction effects. Our findings provide valuable policy implications for establishing and promoting carbon trading in China and other countries.

Keywords: carbon market; carbon trading; climate change; air pollution; difference-in-differences model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/16208/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/16208/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:16208-:d:992851

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().