Emissions trading scheme (ETS) has been adopted by an increasing number of countries and regions for carbon mitigation, but its actual effect depends on specific program design and institutional context. Before launching the world largest ETS, China experimented with seven independent regional pilots, whose effects are only indirectly explored. Here we provide firm-level evidence of the innovation effect directly from China’s pilot emissions trading, based on latest patenting information and a quasi-experimental design. China’s pilots increase low-carbon innovation of ETS firms by 5–10% without crowding out their other technology innovation. The increase from ETS firms accounts for about 1% increase of the regional low-carbon patents, while a similar increase from large non-ETS firms is also induced by the ETS. Most importantly, the effect is not associated with permit price, auction, or firm characteristics, but is driven by mass-based allowance allocation. A rate-based approach, however, is adopted by China’s national market.

The natural environment of the human world has been deteriorating over the past few decades, and policies to protect the environment are receiving increasing attention from governments worldwide. The question of how green institutional pressures from local governments impact corporate behaviors, especially innovation behaviors, is a critical issue. However, the link between local governments’ institutional pressures and corporate innovative behaviors remains a matter of some dispute. This paper compiles data from foreign-invested enterprises in China, using the frequency of green development terms in the Chinese local governments’ annual reports as a key variable, and discusses the influence of local governments’ green institutional pressure on corporate innovation. The conclusions of this paper demonstrate that local governments’ institutional pressure has a promoting effect on corporate innovation, while the home country’s level of green knowledge reservoir has a negative moderating effect on this influence. Moreover, this conclusion exhibits heterogeneity across corporate nature, industry attributes, location characteristics, export experience and home country type.

Purpose: This paper examines how listed firms adapt to China's 2013 fertility policy relaxation. It asks whether the reform affected firms' overseas performance, identifies the female-executive channel and explores conditions that ease adaptation, to inform supporting measures reconciling demographic goals with corporate vitality. Design/methodology/approach: Using the selective two-child reform as a quasi-natural experiment, we compare A-share firms in industries with above- and below-median female employment shares in a difference-in-differences design over 2009–2022, supported by placebo, Propensity Score Matching-Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) and other robustness checks. Findings: Overseas revenue of treated firms fell by roughly 17%in the short-run adjustment phase, operating through a reduced share of female executives. Financial slack and supplier protection disclosure cushion the effect, which concentrates in non-high-tech, heavy-polluting and state-owned firms and eastern China – transitional frictions, not a long-run policy harm. Research limitations/implications: Overseas revenue measures scale, not profitability, and the mediation evidence is associational; finer executive data and causal mediation designs are promising extensions. Practical implications: Internationally exposed firms can adapt more smoothly through succession planning, flexible arrangements for executives in childbearing years and stable supplier relationships. Social implications: Broader social sharing of childbearing costs and public childcare investment would ease firms' adaptation and align the reform's demographic goals with corporate international development. Originality/value: The study links macro fertility policy to corporate internationalization for the first time, provides quasi-experimental evidence on the female-executive channel and reframes the debate around constructive supporting arrangements during the policy transition.