Testing for economic and environmental impacts of EU Emissions Trading System: A panel GMM approach

The COVID 19 pandemic has had a great impact on the European Union economies in many aspects, also with regard to the discussion on the future of EU climate policy. The plan to rebuild and support the European Union's economy, which is currently under discussion at European governments summits, seems to place less emphasis on environmental issues as the main focus is being placed on a quick recovery of EU economy in the realms of global competition. One of the issues discussed in the EU's recovery plan following the COVID19 epidemic is the continued operation of the EU ETS. In this context, empirical research devoted to a thorough analysis of the impact of the EU emissions trading program is of particular importance. At the same time, current economic literature lacks any econometric analyzes devoted to the issues in question that would use detailed and reliable databases on EU ETS like the one provided by the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change. The aim of this paper is to make a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of the EU ETS in terms of reducing the actual emissions to the air while preserving economic growth of EU member states. The extensive empirical analysis is focused on examining the issues in question for different phases of the EU ETS and various groups of EU economies that vary in terms of economic development and the overall air pollutant emission.