Policy Effects of CO₂ ETS on Its Carbon Price: Evidence From Chinese Pilot Regions

This paper aims at giving some policy recommendations on the design of China’s National Emissions Trading Scheme (CN ETS). China’s Carbon Emissions Trading Pilots (C-CETPs) show experience for CN ETS, so it is important to analyze the determinants of the prices in C-CETPs. We use the difference-in-differences (DID) approach to study various policies respectively, including auction, market participants, and carbon forward. Results show that these policies play a big role in the price discovery and stabilization. Auction drives the market price to approach the auction completion price. Carbon price exhibits a negative sensitivity to non-regulated entities’ participation and carbon forward.