Environmental Performance of Carbon Emissions Trading Policy: Evidence From a New Comprehensive Analysis Model

Carbon emissions trading (CET) policy is a major institution innovation in promoting green and low-carbon development, but it is still in the initial stage of implementation, and there are many problems to be solved in the research of CET. Therefore, in this article, we aim to design an environmental performance analysis framework integrating various models for CET and conduct an empirical study on the panel data of 30 provinces in China during 2002–2017. The results indicate that, compared with other regions, there is no technology gap of economic–environmental efficiency (EEE-TG) in east China, and Guangdong has the best technology level during the sample period; the CET significantly improves the economic–environmental efficiency under a metafrontier (EEE-M), but it has no significant effect on the EEE-TG; and the external cost of environmental regulation has a mediating effect on the CET and EEE-M, whereas the internal cost of environmental regulation has a masking effect.