Asymmetric Transmission of Fossil Fuel and CO₂ Emission Allowance Price Shocks Across Energy-Intensive and Non-Energy Industries in Central and Eastern Europe: Implications for the Low-Carbon Transition

The low-carbon energy transition, stringent EU climate policies, and recurrent energy supply crises shape industrial operating costs and resilience in coal-dependent Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies. This study investigates the asymmetric and sectorally heterogeneous transmission of fossil fuel commodity and EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) CO₂ allowance prices to twelve companies listed on the Polish, Czech, and Hungarian stock exchanges over 2018–2026. To examine differences in exposure to energy and carbon price changes, we compare power generation and oil-refining companies with firms in food processing, telecommunications, and finan-cial services. Daily Brent crude oil, natural gas, Rotterdam coal, and CO₂ allowance prices are modeled using Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) specifi-cations and Wald symmetry tests, controlling for domestic benchmarks (WIG, PX, BUX). Results reveal distinct differences across the analyzed companies, consistent with their energy exposure profiles: oil-refining companies exhibit pronounced rela-tionships with crude oil prices, whereas the analyzed power generation company shows associations with long-run CO₂ allowance prices and short-run coal price dy-namics. While domestic benchmarks govern immediate fluctuations, nonlinear re-sponses to energy and carbon shocks manifest predominantly in the short-run adjust-ment lag structure rather than cumulative magnitude. Finally, residual outlier analysis and Friedman tests indicate significant differences in abnormal post-shock adjustment durations across shock types, but not across firms, sectors, or countries.