IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v305y2022ics0306261921012162.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The determinants of CO2 prices in the EU emission trading system

Author

Listed:
  • Lovcha, Yuliya
  • Perez-Laborda, Alejandro
  • Sikora, Iryna

Abstract

In 2005, the European Union launched its Emissions Trading System (ETS), the first and one of the largest international carbon markets aimed at reducing member states' CO2 emissions. Policymakers tend to use the carbon price as an indicator of the “health” and effectiveness of the ETS mechanism, although this measure is influenced by many other energy and climate policies, energy market fundamentals, and speculative shocks. This paper develops a model that links the energy sector (oil, natural gas, coal, electricity prices, and the share of fossil fuels in electricity generation), economic activity, and the carbon price. The model can be used as a monitoring tool for carbon price dynamics. We represent the model empirically through a Structural Vector Autoregression and use frequency-domain analysis to distinguish the effects of changes in fundamental factors from shocks to market microstructure. Our empirical results show that up to 90% (65% on average) of the fluctuations in the carbon price, adjusted for supply effects, are explained by fluctuations in fundamental market variables; however, the individual contributions are not stable. Overall, our results suggest that the ETS has started to work well.

Suggested Citation

  • Lovcha, Yuliya & Perez-Laborda, Alejandro & Sikora, Iryna, 2022. "The determinants of CO2 prices in the EU emission trading system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:305:y:2022:i:c:s0306261921012162
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117903
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921012162
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117903?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. Natalia Fabra & Mar Reguant, 2014. "Pass-Through of Emissions Costs in Electricity Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2872-2899, September.
    2. Keppler, Jan Horst & Mansanet-Bataller, Maria, 2010. "Causalities between CO2, electricity, and other energy variables during phase I and phase II of the EU ETS," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3329-3341, July.
    3. Diebold, Francis X. & Yılmaz, Kamil, 2014. "On the network topology of variance decompositions: Measuring the connectedness of financial firms," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(1), pages 119-134.
    4. Benz, Eva & Trück, Stefan, 2009. "Modeling the price dynamics of CO2 emission allowances," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 4-15, January.
    5. Balcılar, Mehmet & Demirer, Rıza & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Nguyen, Duc Khuong, 2016. "Risk spillovers across the energy and carbon markets and hedging strategies for carbon risk," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 159-172.
    6. Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Sousa, Ricardo M., 2014. "Energy prices and CO2 emission allowance prices: A quantile regression approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 201-206.
    7. Lutz Kilian, 2010. "Explaining Fluctuations in Gasoline Prices: A Joint Model of the Global Crude Oil Market and the U.S. Retail Gasoline Market," The Energy Journal, , vol. 31(2), pages 87-112, April.
    8. Chevallier, Julien & Khuong Nguyen, Duc & Carlos Reboredo, Juan, 2019. "A conditional dependence approach to CO2-energy price relationships," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 812-821.
    9. Domagoj Vulin & Maja Arnaut & Daria Karasalihović Sedlar, 2020. "Forecast of long‐term EUA price probability using momentum strategy and GBM simulation," Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 10(1), pages 230-248, February.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6790 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. A. C. Christiansen & A. Arvanitakis & K. Tangen & H. Hasselknippe, 2005. "Price determinants in the EU emissions trading scheme," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 15-30, January.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Beat Hintermann & Sonja Peterson & Wilfried Rickels, 2016. "Price and Market Behavior in Phase II of the EU ETS: A Review of the Literature," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(1), pages 108-128.
    15. Helena Chuliá, Dolores Furió, and Jorge M. Uribe, 2019. "Volatility Spillovers in Energy Markets," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    16. Lutz Kilian, 2009. "Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike: Disentangling Demand and Supply Shocks in the Crude Oil Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1053-1069, June.
    17. 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.
    18. Pesaran, H. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 1998. "Generalized impulse response analysis in linear multivariate models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 17-29, January.
    19. Chevallier, Julien, 2011. "A model of carbon price interactions with macroeconomic and energy dynamics," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1295-1312.
    20. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5269 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Julien Chevallier, 2012. "Time-varying correlations in oil, gas and CO 2 prices: an application using BEKK, CCC and DCC-MGARCH models," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(32), pages 4257-4274, November.
    22. 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.
    23. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6969 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4222 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Jozef Baruník & Tomáš Křehlík, 2018. "Measuring the Frequency Dynamics of Financial Connectedness and Systemic Risk," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 271-296.
    26. Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Sousa, Ricardo M., 2014. "What explain the short-term dynamics of the prices of CO2 emissions?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 122-135.
    27. Yaqi Wu & Chen Zhang & Po Yun & Dandan Zhu & Wei Cao & Zulfiqar Ali Wagan, 2021. "Time–frequency analysis of the interaction mechanism between European carbon and crude oil markets," Energy & Environment, , vol. 32(7), pages 1331-1357, November.
    28. Reboredo, Juan C., 2014. "Volatility spillovers between the oil market and the European Union carbon emission market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 229-234.
    29. Gong, Xu & Shi, Rong & Xu, Jun & Lin, Boqiang, 2021. "Analyzing spillover effects between carbon and fossil energy markets from a time-varying perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    30. Tan, Xue-Ping & Wang, Xin-Yu, 2017. "Dependence changes between the carbon price and its fundamentals: A quantile regression approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 306-325.
    31. Cohen, Gail & Jalles, Joao Tovar & Loungani, Prakash & Marto, Ricardo, 2018. "The long-run decoupling of emissions and output: Evidence from the largest emitters," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 58-68.
    32. Zhao, Xin & Han, Meng & Ding, Lili & Kang, Wanglin, 2018. "Usefulness of economic and energy data at different frequencies for carbon price forecasting in the EU ETS," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 132-141.
    33. Diebold, Francis X. & Yilmaz, Kamil, 2012. "Better to give than to receive: Predictive directional measurement of volatility spillovers," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 57-66.
    34. Tan, Xueping & Sirichand, Kavita & Vivian, Andrew & Wang, Xinyu, 2020. "How connected is the carbon market to energy and financial markets? A systematic analysis of spillovers and dynamics," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    35. Ye, Jing & Xue, Minggao, 2021. "Influences of sentiment from news articles on EU carbon prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    36. 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.
    37. Jiménez-Rodríguez, Rebeca, 2019. "What happens to the relationship between EU allowances prices and stock market indices in Europe?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 13-24.
    38. Liu, Hsiang-Hsi & Chen, Yi-Chun, 2013. "A study on the volatility spillovers, long memory effects and interactions between carbon and energy markets: The impacts of extreme weather," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 840-855.
    39. 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.
    40. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-081 is not listed on IDEAS
    41. Wang, Yudong & Guo, Zhuangyue, 2018. "The dynamic spillover between carbon and energy markets: New evidence," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 24-33.
    42. Crossland, Jarrod & Li, Bin & Roca, Eduardo, 2013. "Is the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) informationally efficient? Evidence from momentum-based trading strategies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 10-23.
    43. 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).
    44. Sadorsky, Perry, 2001. "Risk factors in stock returns of Canadian oil and gas companies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 17-28, January.
    45. 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.
    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. Lovcha, Yuliya & Pérez Laborda, Àlex & Sikora, Iryna, 2019. "The Determinants of CO2 prices in the EU ETS System," Working Papers 2072/376031, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    2. 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).
    3. Dai, Xingyu & Xiao, Ling & Wang, Qunwei & Dhesi, Gurjeet, 2021. "Multiscale interplay of higher-order moments between the carbon and energy markets during Phase III of the EU ETS," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    4. Tan, Xueping & Sirichand, Kavita & Vivian, Andrew & Wang, Xinyu, 2020. "How connected is the carbon market to energy and financial markets? A systematic analysis of spillovers and dynamics," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Adekoya, Oluwasegun B. & Oliyide, Johnson A. & Noman, Ambreen, 2021. "The volatility connectedness of the EU carbon market with commodity and financial markets in time- and frequency-domain: The role of the U.S. economic policy uncertainty," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. Man, Yuanyuan & Zhang, Sunpei & He, Yongda, 2024. "Dynamic risk spillover and hedging efficacy of China’s carbon-energy-finance markets: Economic policy uncertainty and investor sentiment non-linear causal effects," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 1397-1416.
    7. Zheng, Yan & Yin, Hua & Zhou, Min & Liu, Wenhua & Wen, Fenghua, 2021. "Impacts of oil shocks on the EU carbon emissions allowances under different market conditions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    8. Wu, Ruirui & Qin, Zhongfeng & Liu, Bing-Yue, 2022. "A systemic analysis of dynamic frequency spillovers among carbon emissions trading (CET), fossil energy and sectoral stock markets: Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).
    9. Zhou, Yuqin & Wu, Shan & Zhang, Zeyi, 2022. "Multidimensional risk spillovers among carbon, energy and nonferrous metals markets: Evidence from the quantile VAR network," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    10. Cristiano Salvagnin & Aldo Glielmo & Maria Elena De Giuli & Antonietta Mira, 2024. "Investigating the price determinants of the European Emission Trading System: a non-parametric approach," Papers 2406.05094, arXiv.org.
    11. Hanif, Waqas & Arreola Hernandez, Jose & Mensi, Walid & Kang, Sang Hoon & Uddin, Gazi Salah & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2021. "Nonlinear dependence and connectedness between clean/renewable energy sector equity and European emission allowance prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    12. 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.
    13. Chun, Dohyun & Cho, Hoon & Kim, Jihun, 2022. "The relationship between carbon-intensive fuel and renewable energy stock prices under the emissions trading system," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    14. Tan, Xue-Ping & Wang, Xin-Yu, 2017. "Dependence changes between the carbon price and its fundamentals: A quantile regression approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 306-325.
    15. Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Sousa, Ricardo M., 2014. "What explain the short-term dynamics of the prices of CO2 emissions?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 122-135.
    16. Demiralay, Sercan & Gencer, Hatice Gaye & Bayraci, Selcuk, 2022. "Carbon credit futures as an emerging asset: Hedging, diversification and downside risks," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    17. Liu, Jianing & Man, Yuanyuan & Dong, Xiuliang, 2023. "Tail dependence and risk spillover effects between China's carbon market and energy markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 553-567.
    18. Joao Leitao & Joaquim Ferreira & Ernesto Santibanez‐Gonzalez, 2021. "Green bonds, sustainable development and environmental policy in the European Union carbon market," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 2077-2090, May.
    19. Zhu, Bangzhu & Ye, Shunxin & Han, Dong & Wang, Ping & He, Kaijian & Wei, Yi-Ming & Xie, Rui, 2019. "A multiscale analysis for carbon price drivers," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 202-216.
    20. 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.

    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:305:y:2022:i:c:s0306261921012162. 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.