IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v193y2017icp414-425.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emission trading and carbon market performance in Shenzhen, China

Author

Listed:
  • Cong, Ren
  • Lo, Alex Y.

Abstract

China has developed its own domestic carbon markets by setting up emission trading schemes. This study addresses concerns about the functioning of these schemes and the financial performance of the Chinese carbon market. It aims to assess an actual outcome of this policy intervention, i.e. trading records, which were used in our analysis to examine a key financial property of the allowance-based market in Shenzhen. In a mature market, assets that incur higher risks are likely to yield higher returns, i.e. a positive relationship. To examine this property, we solicited historical data on the price and trading volume of emission allowances. We statistically estimated the degree of volatility in the Shenzhen market and its relationship with expected return premium. We found that the rate of return was negatively associated with expected risk. This stands at odds with the usual expectation in the financial market and the prediction of asset pricing theory. Also, kurtosis in trading volume was excessively high and its fluctuations were highly concentrated. We discuss these findings in terms of market liquidity and information uncertainties, and offer some policy recommendations. More regulatory attention and economic fixes are needed to improve market efficiency and eliminate sources of market distortions.

Suggested Citation

  • Cong, Ren & Lo, Alex Y., 2017. "Emission trading and carbon market performance in Shenzhen, China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 414-425.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:193:y:2017:i:c:p:414-425
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.02.037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261917301617
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.02.037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jiang, Jing Jing & Ye, Bin & Ma, Xiao Ming, 2014. "The construction of Shenzhen׳s carbon emission trading scheme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 17-21.
    2. Wei Shen, 2015. "Chinese business at the dawn of its domestic emissions trading scheme: incentives and barriers to participation in carbon trading," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3), pages 339-354, May.
    3. Campbell, John Y. & Hentschel, Ludger, 1992. "No news is good news *1: An asymmetric model of changing volatility in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 281-318, June.
    4. Jian Yang & Michael Haigh & David Leatham, 2001. "Agricultural liberalization policy and commodity price volatility: a GARCH application," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(9), pages 593-598.
    5. Benz, Eva & Trück, Stefan, 2009. "Modeling the price dynamics of CO2 emission allowances," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 4-15, January.
    6. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    7. Munnings, Clayton & Morgenstern, Richard D. & Wang, Zhongmin & Liu, Xu, 2016. "Assessing the design of three carbon trading pilot programs in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 688-699.
    8. Julien Chevallier, 2012. "Cointegration between carbon spot and futures prices: from linear to nonlinear modeling," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(1), pages 160-181.
    9. Zhang, ZhongXiang, 2010. "China in the transition to a low-carbon economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 6638-6653, November.
    10. ZhongXiang Zhang, 2016. "Making the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy: The Key Challenges for China," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 187-202, May.
    11. Emilie Alberola & Benoît Chèze & Julien Chevallier, 2008. "The EU Emissions Trading Scheme : Disentangling the Effects of Industrial Production and CO2 Emissions on Carbon Prices," EconomiX Working Papers 2008-12, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    12. Dueker, Michael J, 1997. "Markov Switching in GARCH Processes and Mean-Reverting Stock-Market Volatility," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(1), pages 26-34, January.
    13. ZhongXiang Zhang, 2015. "Crossing the river by feeling the stones: the case of carbon trading in China," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 17(2), pages 263-297, April.
    14. Richard G. Newell & William A. Pizer & Daniel Raimi, 2013. "Carbon Markets 15 Years after Kyoto: Lessons Learned, New Challenges," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 123-146, Winter.
    15. Benschopa, Thijs & López Cabreraa, Brenda, 2014. "Volatility modelling of CO2 emission allowance spot prices with regime-switching GARCH models," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2014-050, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    16. Hintermann, Beat, 2010. "Allowance price drivers in the first phase of the EU ETS," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 43-56, January.
    17. Qing Pei & Lanlan Liu & David Zhang, 2013. "Carbon emission right as a new property right: rescue CDM developers in China from 2012," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 307-320, September.
    18. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    19. Fama, Eugene F, 1991. "Efficient Capital Markets: II," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1575-1617, December.
    20. Chevallier, Julien, 2009. "Carbon futures and macroeconomic risk factors: A view from the EU ETS," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 614-625, July.
    21. Zhongxiang Zhang, 2015. "Carbon emissions trading in China: the evolution from pilots to a nationwide scheme," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(sup1), pages 104-126, December.
    22. Alex Y. Lo & Xiang Yu, 2015. "Climate for Business: Opportunities for Financial Institutions and Sustainable Development in the Chinese Carbon Market," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 369-380, December.
    23. Paolella, Marc S. & Taschini, Luca, 2008. "An econometric analysis of emission allowance prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 2022-2032, October.
    24. Elyasiani, Elyas & Mansur, Iqbal, 1998. "Sensitivity of the bank stock returns distribution to changes in the level and volatility of interest rate: A GARCH-M model," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 535-563, May.
    25. Zhao, Xin-gang & Jiang, Gui-wu & Nie, Dan & Chen, Hao, 2016. "How to improve the market efficiency of carbon trading: A perspective of China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1229-1245.
    26. Appiah-Kusi, Joe & Menyah, Kojo, 2003. "Return predictability in African stock markets," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 247-270.
    27. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10174 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Marc S. Paoletta & Luca Taschini, 2006. "An Econometric Analysis of Emission Trading Allowances," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 06-26, Swiss Finance Institute.
    29. Zhongxiang Zhang, 2015. "Climate mitigation policy in China," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(sup1), pages 1-6, December.
    30. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    31. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4222 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Seifert, Jan & Uhrig-Homburg, Marliese & Wagner, Michael, 2008. "Dynamic behavior of CO2 spot prices," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 180-194, September.
    33. Zhongxiang Zhang, 2007. "Why has China not embraced a global cap-and-trade regime?," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 166-170, March.
    34. Liu, Liwei & Chen, Chuxiang & Zhao, Yufei & Zhao, Erdong, 2015. "China׳s carbon-emissions trading: Overview, challenges and future," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 254-266.
    35. Liu, Heping & Erdem, Ergin & Shi, Jing, 2011. "Comprehensive evaluation of ARMA-GARCH(-M) approaches for modeling the mean and volatility of wind speed," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 724-732, March.
    36. Chou, Ray Yeutien, 1988. "Volatility Persistence and Stock Valuations: Some Empirical Evidence Using Garch," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(4), pages 279-294, October-D.
    37. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4210 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. French, Kenneth R. & Schwert, G. William & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1987. "Expected stock returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, September.
    39. Maosheng Duan & Tao Pang & Xiliang Zhang, 2014. "Review of Carbon Emissions Trading Pilots in China," Energy & Environment, , vol. 25(3-4), pages 527-549, April.
    40. Bekaert, Geert & Wu, Guojun, 2000. "Asymmetric Volatility and Risk in Equity Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(1), pages 1-42.
    41. Zhang, Da & Karplus, Valerie J. & Cassisa, Cyril & Zhang, Xiliang, 2014. "Emissions trading in China: Progress and prospects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 9-16.
    42. Jiang, Jingjing & Xie, Dejun & Ye, Bin & Shen, Bo & Chen, Zhanming, 2016. "Research on China’s cap-and-trade carbon emission trading scheme: Overview and outlook," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 902-917.
    43. Cheng F. Lee & Gong-meng Chen & Oliver M. Rui, 2001. "Stock Returns And Volatility On China'S Stock Markets," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 24(4), pages 523-543, December.
    44. World Bank & Ecofys & Vivid Economics, "undated". "State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2016," World Bank Publications - Reports 25160, The World Bank Group.
    45. Cheng F. Lee & Gong-meng Chen & Oliver M. Rui, 2001. "Stock Returns And Volatility On China'S Stock Markets," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 24(4), pages 523-543, December.
    46. Alberola, Emilie & Chevallier, Julien & Cheze, Benoi^t, 2008. "Price drivers and structural breaks in European carbon prices 2005-2007," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 787-797, February.
    47. Emilic Alberola & Julien Chevallier & Benoit Cheze, 2008. "The EU Emissions Trading Scheme: the Effects of Industrial Production and CO2 Emissions on Carbon Prices," Economie Internationale, CEPII research center, issue 116, pages 93-126.
    48. Maria Mansanet-Bataller & Angel Pardo & Enric Valor, 2007. "CO2 Prices, Energy and Weather," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 73-92.
    49. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7936 is not listed on IDEAS
    50. Daskalakis, George & Psychoyios, Dimitris & Markellos, Raphael N., 2009. "Modeling CO2 emission allowance prices and derivatives: Evidence from the European trading scheme," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1230-1241, July.
    51. Engle, Robert F & Lilien, David M & Robins, Russell P, 1987. "Estimating Time Varying Risk Premia in the Term Structure: The Arch-M Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 391-407, March.
    52. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4223 is not listed on IDEAS
    53. Devaney, Michael, 2001. "Time varying risk premia for real estate investment trusts: A GARCH-M model," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 335-346.
    54. Wu, Libo & Qian, Haoqi & Li, Jin, 2014. "Advancing the experiment to reality: Perspectives on Shanghai pilot carbon emissions trading scheme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 22-30.
    55. Hou, Aijun & Suardi, Sandy, 2012. "A nonparametric GARCH model of crude oil price return volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 618-626.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Segnon, Mawuli & Lux, Thomas & Gupta, Rangan, 2017. "Modeling and forecasting the volatility of carbon dioxide emission allowance prices: A review and comparison of modern volatility models," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 692-704.
    2. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2014-050 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Benschopa, Thijs & López Cabreraa, Brenda, 2014. "Volatility modelling of CO2 emission allowance spot prices with regime-switching GARCH models," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2014-050, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    4. Gil-Alana, Luis A. & Gupta, Rangan & de Gracia, Fernando Perez, 2016. "Modeling persistence of carbon emission allowance prices," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 221-226.
    5. Nader Trabelsi & Aviral Kumar Tiwari, 2023. "CO2 Emission Allowances Risk Prediction with GAS and GARCH Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 61(2), pages 775-805, February.
    6. Fang, Sheng & Lu, Xinsheng & Li, Jianfeng & Qu, Ling, 2018. "Multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis of carbon emission allowance and stock returns," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 509(C), pages 551-566.
    7. Chang, Kai & Chen, Rongda & Chevallier, Julien, 2018. "Market fragmentation, liquidity measures and improvement perspectives from China's emissions trading scheme pilots," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 249-260.
    8. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Fouilloux, Jessica, 2011. "Testing the martingale difference hypothesis in CO2 emission allowances," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 27-35.
    9. Nicolas Koch, 2014. "Dynamic linkages among carbon, energy and financial markets: a smooth transition approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(7), pages 715-729, March.
    10. Creti, Anna & Jouvet, Pierre-André & Mignon, Valérie, 2012. "Carbon price drivers: Phase I versus Phase II equilibrium?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 327-334.
    11. Gavard, Claire & Kirat, Djamel, 2018. "Flexibility in the market for international carbon credits and price dynamics difference with European allowances," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 504-518.
    12. Yan, Kai & Zhang, Wei & Shen, Dehua, 2020. "Stylized facts of the carbon emission market in China," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 555(C).
    13. Benschop, Thijs & López Cabrera, Brenda, 2017. "Realized volatility of CO2 futures," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2017-025, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    14. Lo, Alex Y & Mai, Lindsay Qianqing & Lee, Anna Ka-yin & Francesch-Huidobro, Maria & Pei, Qing & Cong, Ren & Chen, Kang, 2018. "Towards network governance? The case of emission trading in Guangdong, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 538-548.
    15. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2017-025 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Yinpeng Zhang & Zhixin Liu & Yingying Xu, 2018. "Carbon price volatility: The case of China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, October.
    17. Aatola, Piia & Ollikainen, Markku & Toppinen, Anne, 2013. "Price determination in the EU ETS market: Theory and econometric analysis with market fundamentals," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 380-395.
    18. Aatola, Piia & Ollikka, Kimmo & Ollikainen, Markku, 2012. "Informational Efficiency of the EU ETS market – a study of price predictability and profitable trading," Working Papers 28, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Medina, Vicente & Pardo, Ángel & Pascual, Roberto, 2014. "The timeline of trading frictions in the European carbon market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 378-394.
    20. Duan, Kun & Ren, Xiaohang & Shi, Yukun & Mishra, Tapas & Yan, Cheng, 2021. "The marginal impacts of energy prices on carbon price variations: Evidence from a quantile-on-quantile approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    21. Balietti, Anca Claudia, 2016. "Trader types and volatility of emission allowance prices. Evidence from EU ETS Phase I," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 607-620.
    22. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Jessica Fouilloux, 2010. "Testing the Martingale Difference Hypothesis in the EU ETS Markets for the CO2 Emission Allowances: Evidence from Phase I and Phase II," Post-Print hal-00797491, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:193:y:2017:i:c:p:414-425. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.