中国环境污染与地方政府税收竞争——基于空间面板数据模型的分析

Environmental Pollution and Intergovernmental Tax Competition in China: Based on Spatial Panel Data Model

随着经济不断发展,环境污染问题日益严峻已引起社会各界的广泛关注。本文通过理论研究表明地方政府间税收竞争对环境污染加剧具有必然影响,一方面税收竞争导致地方政府间相互降低税率;另一方面,税收竞争还影响地方政府的环境政策力度,导致地方政府采用宽松的环境政策。降低税率会使环境污染的负外部性得不到补偿,降低税收效率;放松环境政策则会导致环境政策的"趋劣竞争",都将导致环境污染加剧和环境质量的降低。对2000-2009年中国28个省份的空间面板数据的实证检验则表明:环境污染在地理空间上具有非常明显的空间联动性,环境污染受到相邻地区的溢出效应影响非常明显;税负降低确实促进了工业废水、工业废气及工业废弃物等环境污染排放量的增加,对环境质量的降低具有显著影响;而地方政府执行宽松的环境政策促使工业废水排放量增加,各地方政府倾向于承担较低水平的废水减排努力,出现环境政策的"趋劣竞争",而对工业废气和固体废弃物的排放却起到一定的缩减功能。

With the continuously developmental of economic, environmental pollution is getting worse and has aroused wide attention of the whole society. Based on theoretical analysis, it is that intergovernmental tax competition caused environmental degradation inevitably. On the one hand, tax competition decreases local governments＇ tax rate. On the other hand, intergovernmental tax competition affects environmental policies, leading to inefficiently loose environmental standards. Lower tax rates failed to compensate the external costs of pollution and this will cause tax-inefficiency, and inefficiently loose environmental standards will promote a ＇ race to the bottom＇ in environmental policies. Then we examined the relationship between intergovernmental tax competition and the environmental pollution based on China＇s spatial liner panel data in 28 provinces from 2000 to 2009. Empirical results are as follows： there is remarkable geographic special independence for environmental pollution and each province had been influenced by neighboring regions; lower tax rate did increase emissions and degrade the environmental significantly; as local governments allow to implement loose environmental pOlily, the industrial waste water discharge will increase significantly and local governments will make efforts to reduce waste water discharge at relatively lower level, namely ＇ race to the bottom＇ , but inefficiently loose environmental standards have certain effects to reduce industrial gas emission and solid waste discharge.