The Impact of Carbon Price on Energy Efficiency

碳交易是我国目前主要的减排政策工具，碳价机制对于提高能源效率、实现能耗总量和强度“双控”目标具有重要的意义。本文基于2006~2022年275个地级市的面板数据，探讨了碳价对能源效率的影响。研究发现，碳价对能源效率的提升效应显著。机制检验表明，碳价可以通过提高绿色技术创新水平与推动产业结构高级化来提高能源效率。在经过内生性检验以及其他稳健性检验后，研究结论依旧成立。此外，碳价的提升效应可能随城市的地理位置、环境重点保护程度表现出不同的异质性。由此得出，应进一步扩大和深化扩大碳市场覆盖范围，充分发挥碳价机制的激励作用，优化区域差异化碳价政策，以实现能源效率的最大化提升。Carbon trading is the main emission reduction policy tool in China, and the carbon price mechanism is of great significance for improving energy efficiency and realizing the goal of “double-control” of total energy consumption and intensity. Based on the panel data of 275 prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2022, this paper explores the impact of carbon price on energy efficiency. It is found that carbon price has a significant effect on energy efficiency. The mechanism test shows that carbon price can improve energy efficiency by increasing the level of green technology innovation and promoting the advanced industrial structure. After the endogeneity test and other robustness tests, the findings still hold. In addition, the enhancement effect of carbon price may show different heterogeneity according to the geographic location of the city and the degree of environmental priority protection. It is concluded that the coverage of the carbon market should be further expanded and deepened to give full play to the incentives of the carbon pricing mechanism and optimize the regional differentiated carbon pricing policy in order to maximize the improvement of energy efficiency.