The Impact of Carbon Emissions Trading on the Profitability and Debt Burden of Listed Companies

The high-quality development of China's green finance is driven by the aims of reaching peak carbon and carbon neutrality, leading to an important impact of emissions trading policies on the profitability and debt burden of China's listed companies. This paper uses propensity score matching (PSM) and the difference in differences (DID) method to study the impact of carbon emissions trading policies on the profitability and debt burden of listed companies in seven carbon emissions trading pilots from 2010 to 2019. The empirical evidence shows that the implementation of carbon emissions trading policies has increased the profitability and reduced the debt burden of listed companies: (1) Mechanism test shows that this policy can increase the profitability and debt burden of state-owned listed companies by increasing innovation investment. (2) The negative effects of this policy on the profitability and debt burden of state-owned listed companies are more obvious than that of the others. (3) The policy has also significantly reduced the debt burden of competitive companies and the profitability of monopolies. (4) The policy yields a more intense reduction in the debt burden of listed companies in high-carbon emission industries. Finally, this paper suggests that listed companies' participation in the carbon emissions trading policy be expanded and that monopoly conditions among listed companies are reduced.