The Impact of EU Allowance Prices on the Stock Market Indices of the European Power Industries: Evidence From the Ongoing EU ETS Phase III

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) was created in 2005 to price every ton of carbon dioxide emissions. Within this framework, EU carbon dioxide emission allowances can affect electric power industry stock performance. This article uses a multifactor market model and a panel data econometric technique to investigate the long-run impact of EU carbon dioxide emission allowances on the European power sector. We also use panel cointegration to check whether there is a long-run relationship, and fully modified ordinary least square and dynamic ordinary least square to estimate any such relationship. The panel data include a daily sample for the ongoing EU ETS Phase III (from 1 January 2013 until 22 April 2017) and data from six European Union members (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain). The estimated coefficients suggest that EU allowance prices have a statistically significant and positive long-run effect on the European power sector stock market in EU ETS Phase III. This potentially supports EU efforts to toughen carbon reduction regime targets in order to remove the surplus from the system.

Automated summary

This article investigates the long-term impact of EU carbon dioxide emission allowances on the European power sector, finding that EU allowance prices have a significant and positive long-term effect on the European power sector stock market in EU ETS Phase III.