Abstract: Financial resources are an important guarantee for enterprises to implement macro-control policy goals and conduct business operations. Thus it is of great significance to explore whether the carbon emissions trading policy will affect the financial resources of enterprises. This paper constructs a PSM-DID model based on China’s A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2017 to study this issue. The results show that the implementation of the carbon emissions trading policy has significantly improved the cash holding level of the pilot enterprises. The result of the test of the impact mechanism shows that the carbon emissions trading policy affects the cash holding level of pilot enterprises through two paths, i.e., the precautionary motivation and the transactional motivation. Further test reveals that the improving effect of carbon emissions trading policy on cash holding level of pilot enterprises is more significant in the enterprises with investment preference, the enterprises in the industries with higher degree of product market competition, or the pilot enterprises with weak market power. Therefore, the government should continue to promote the carbon emissions trading policy and improve the carbon emissions trading markets, and provide green resource support to relevant enterprises. Enterprises should increase their sensitivity to the dual-carbon policy, improve the level of cash holdings and fund utilization efficiency, so as to achieve low-carbon and benign development.

Key words: carbon emissions trading, corporate cash holdings, precautionary motive, transactional motive