关键词: 环境权益交易,费用黏性,排污权交易,准自然实验

Abstract: Using China’s SO2 emission trading scheme of the environmental rights trading markets in the trial regions in 2007 for a quasi-natural experiment, this paper tries to explore the effects of the China’s SO2 emission trading scheme in the trial regions on firm’s cost stickiness. By making use of the data of China’s A share listed firms during 2002-2012, it is found through an empirical test with a difference-in-difference model that the emission trading scheme has significantly increased the cost stickiness of the pilot enterprises, and the improved effect reached 67.75%. The causal relationship has also been verified by a series of robust tests. Through the innovation excitation effect, the emission trading policy can stimulate enterprises to carry out independent innovation so as to improve their cost stickiness; and the number of invention-innovated patent applications has the most significant mediating effect on the two, while the mediating effect of the number of practical and appearance-type innovative patent applications is not significant. The intensity of the emission trading policy on the cost stickiness of the pilot enterprise also depends on the factor intensity of industry, financing constraint level and agency cost of the enterprise. Compared to the technology-intensive industries, the emission trading scheme has a stronger effect on cost stickiness in the enterprises in labor-intensive and capital-intensive industries. The lower the financing constraint degree of the enterprise or the agency cost is, the stronger the effect of the emission trading scheme on the cost stickiness of the pilot enterprises will be.

Key words: environmental rights trading schemes；firm’s stickiness of cost；emission trading scheme；quasi-natural experiment