Carbon pricing, compensation, and competitiveness: Lessons from UK manufacturing
利用英国制造业企业数据，研究发现对高碳企业的补偿虽能缓解产出下降，但会增加用电和排放，揭示了保护竞争力与延迟脱碳之间的政策权衡。
Carbon pricing is often paired with compensation to carbon-intensive firms to mitigate the risk of carbon leakage. This paper empirically examines the effects of indirect carbon cost compensation on UK manufacturing firms. Using administrative microdata, we combine difference-in-differences and fuzzy regression discontinuity designs to exploit firm-level eligibility criteria and identify the causal impact of compensation. We find that compensation reduces output contraction but also increases electricity consumption and emissions. These findings highlight a key policy trade-off – while compensation can help protect firms’ competitiveness and reduce leakage risks, it may also delay industrial decarbonization and increase the overall cost of achieving national emission targets.