关键词: 碳排放权交易制度, 绿色技术创新, 金融投资, 企业异质性, 外部环境

Abstract: The establishment of the carbon emission trading market marks the beginning of the transition of China's environmental regulatory policies from the traditional command-and-control type to the market-incentive type. It is a key measure to implement the concept of low-carbon and green development in the new era. It is also of great significance for achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals as well as building a beautiful China. However, whether environmental regulations can truly solve the dilemma between the environmental protection and the economic growth also depends on the coping strategies of the environmental pollution subjects. Studies have found that companies may adopt strategic response methods such as green technological innovation, reduction of the production scale, and cross-industry operations when faced with environmental regulatory pressures. In view of this, this article selects the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and uses the quasi-natural experiment established by the carbon emission trading market to investigate the impact of market-incentive environmental regulations on corporate investment behaviors, trying to provide empirical evidence for clarifying the relationship between environmental regulations and the corporate green transformation.
The test results show that, in general, the pressure and incentive effects brought about by the implementation of the carbon emission trading system have significantly induced pilot companies' green technology innovation and financial asset investment, and there is no obvious evidence that companies will use the reduction of the production scale to release the environmental regulations pressure. Considering that different companies have different ownership structures, resource endowments and technological advantages, which may lead to differences in their response strategies to the carbon emission trading system, the article also examines the moderating role of the corporate heterogeneity. It is found that private enterprises and enterprises with strong R&D density are more inclined to achieve green transformation through green technology innovation, while state-owned enterprises and enterprises with weak R&D density are more inclined to use cross-industry investment to release the emission reduction pressure and the cost pressure. Because of the existence of economies of scale and technological advantages, enterprises will simultaneously carry out green technological innovation and cross-industry investment. Furthermore, this article also explores the influence of the external environment such as the product market competition and the local environmental law enforcement on the investment choices of companies, and finds that the more intense the product market competition, the more pilot companies tend to carry out green technological innovations to achieve green transformation; on the contrary, the weaker the product market competition, the more likely the pilot companies will choose financial asset investment to achieve environmental compliance and profit compensation. In addition, the impact of the carbon emission trading system on green technology innovation and financial asset investment mainly exists in areas with weak environmental enforcement, while there is no significant difference in areas with strong environmental enforcement, which shows that the environmental rights market can make up for the lack of the environmental law enforcement to a certain extent.
The contributions of the article are as follows: (1) The article comprehensively explores the impact of the carbon emission trading mechanism on corporate investment behaviors and cross-sectional differences from a micro level, enriching and deepening the studies on the economic consequences of market-incentive environmental regulations; (2) The article finds that the carbon emission trading mechanism induces green technology innovation and diversified operations of enterprises, which to a certain extent provides empirical evidence for correctly understanding and reasonably evaluating the policy effects of market-incentive environmental regulations in developing countries; (3) The article finds that under the pressure effect of the carbon emission trading mechanism, different companies will adopt different response strategies, which not only provides government departments with policy implications for the further improvement of the carbon emission trading mechanism and the targeted guidance of corporate environmental governance behaviors, but also offers theoretical support and empirical evidence for the subsequent gradual promotion of the transition from regional carbon emission trading pilots to the national carbon trading market.

Key words: Carbon Emission Trading System, Green Technology Innovation, Financial Investment, Enterprise Heterogeneity, External Environment