Do Carbon Financial Market Pilots Enhance Enterprise New Quality Productive Forces? A Quasi-Natural Experiment
Guangtong Gu, Tiantian Zhao
Keywords:
financial resource allocation, new quality productive forces (NQPF), carbon financial market, low-carbon development, core competitiveness
Abstract:
In the contemporary competitive landscape, enterprises strive to bolster their competitiveness through technological innovation and structural upgrading. The carbon financial market pilot (CFMP) policy serves as a critical instrument to incentivize emission reduction and foster green technology adoption, thereby enhancing firm’s competitive edge. Using CFMP as a quasi-natural experimental setting, the current research explores its effect on the development of new quality productive forces (NQPF) relying on balanced panel samples of listed firms covering 2011 to 2022. Methodologically, this study applies double machine learning techniques, multi-period difference-in-differences, two-way fixed effects models, and multiple robustness tests, as well as heterogeneity analyses. Our findings reveal that CFMP significantly promotes NQPF, with the key innovation being the identification of crucial mediating channels: mitigating information asymmetry and lowering financing costs, particularly by reducing equity financing costs. Further analysis shows that CFMP enhances enterprises’ core competitiveness, with the mediating effect of NQPF in market performance and their short-term policy effects more prominent in fiscal performance and innovation capability. Furthermore, the effect features greater intensity in lower competition intensity, large enterprises, and state-owned enterprises operating in areas lacking stringent environmental constraints. This study sheds light on the part played by carbon finance mechanisms in shaping corporate competitiveness and green transformation. Policy implications include establishing a special green development fund for NQPF, building a national unified carbon finance information platform, implementing hierarchical and targeted support for enterprises of different types, and strengthening policy coordination between CFMP, green finance, and environmental subsidies to avoid overlapping or conflicting objectives.
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 Do Carbon Financial Market Pilots Enhance Enterprise New Quality Productive Forces? A Quasi-Natural Experiment [PDF file] [Filesize: 898.19 KB]
 10.7441/joc.2026.02.05
Gu, G., & Zhao, T. (2026). Do Carbon Financial Market Pilots Enhance Enterprise New Quality Productive Forces? A Quasi-Natural Experiment. Journal of Competitiveness 18(2), 127–160. https://doi.org/10.7441/joc.2026.02.05
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