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| Rational Expectations and Energy Investment:A Natural Experiment Based on China's Commitment to Carbon Dioxide Emissions Abatement |
| XIE Li, ZHENG Xinye
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| School of Trade and Economics, Hunan University; School of Applied Economics, Renmin University of China |
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Abstract At the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, in 2016, China submitted its instrument of ratification of the Paris Agreement to the UN, and made a solemn commitment to the international community to meet its voluntary emission reduction targets, as follows: “China will reach its peak in carbon dioxide emission before 2030 and its intensity of carbon dioxide emission will decrease by 60% to 65% in 2030 compared to that in 2005.” To achieve this goal, the Chinese government has not only dynamically adjusted its energy conservation and emission reduction policies, but also tried to establish a carbon-trading market. However, the development of enterprises entails considerable pollution, and corporate energy projects are characterized by a large investment scale, long cycles, and strong irreversibility; thus the effect of carbon emission reduction policy tools is limited.
Due to constraints on the selection of cases, sample data, and research methods, research is still lacking on how to introduce rational expectation to investment behavior in corporate energy projects. As an important policy tool for the government to realize carbon dioxide emission reductions, China's pilot carbon-trading market offers a concrete natural experimental setting to test whether corporate rational expectations affect energy investment behavior. In late 2011, the Chinese government approved regional pilots for a carbon-trading market in seven provinces and cities by the end of 2013, including Beijing and Shanghai, thus sending an important signal to the market. It means that corporate investment in or operation of high carbon emission projects may increase carbon-permit costs in the future, which may encourage enterprises to adjust investment decisions and operations in relation to high-and low-emission energy projects. At the same time, the power generation industry is not only the largest consumer of energy, especially fossil energy, but also the main source of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
Therefore, this paper investigates the effect of China's carbon-trading market pilot policy on the investment behavior of power generation projects in China. By dividing power generation investment projects into high-emission and low-emission categories, the installation capacity of power generation technology or the average utilization hours of power generation projects and other physical measures are used to reflect enterprises' actual investment in power generation projects or effective utilization of the investment. On this basis, it is possible to construct a theoretical model of the investment behavior of inter-period enterprise power generation projects. The difference-in-differences method is adopted to empirically test how the government's carbon-permit market pilot policy affects enterprises' application of rational expectations to investment in power generation projects. The results show that companies have rational expectations of the carbon-trading market pilot to be implemented by the government in the future. In the pilot regions, enterprises began to adjust their investment in high-emission and low-emission power generation technology when the government issued the plan, which significantly reduced investment in high-emission power generation projects and increased investment in low-emission power generation projects. In particular, they significantly increased investment in thermal power generation projects with low-emission characteristics.
This study broadens research on the application of rational expectation to energy project investment, and demonstrates the existence of rational expectation in the investment behavior of energy projects. Even more importantly, it indicates that the planning period before the formal implementation of environmental regulation policy by the government will have the expected management effect on the investment behavior of enterprises. By signaling its emission reduction policies to promote enterprises' prior adjustment, the government can better meet its emission reduction commitments.
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Received: 08 August 2019
Published: 10 June 2020
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