领导干部自然资源资产离任审计的环境治理效应

Environmental Governance Effect of Natural Resources and Assets Accountability Audit of Officials During Period of Tenure

为了检验领导干部自然资源资产离任审计的环境治理效应,我们运用2014年审计署组织部分省级审计机关实施领导干部自然资源资产离任审计试点这一准自然实验,对试点城市的环境治理效应进行了实证检验。研究发现:相对于非试点城市,试点城市的财政环保投入与辖区内企业环保投资均显著增加,且企业环保投资增加主要集中在国有企业。其中,试点城市给予企业环保补助是导致其增加环保投资的一种可能机制。此外,试点城市并未显著出现对环境指标的短效干预行为。本文从政府和企业两个维度,为领导干部自然资源资产离任审计的环境治理效应提供了经验证据,丰富了政府审计与环境治理两大领域的交叉研究。

In 2014,the National Audit Office of China (CNAO)introduced a pilot scheme which aimed at implementing natural resources and assets accountability audit of officials during period of tenure at provincial level.Therefore,with the pilot scheme as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper empirically examines the environmental governance effect of natural resources accountability audit in pilot cities.The regression results verify that the environmental investment of local government and the firms in the cities covered by the pilot scheme has increased significantly,compared with that of the cities not covered by the scheme.Moreover,the firm-level environmental investment increase is mainly attributable to the SOEs.In addition,more environmental subsidies to the firms provided by pilot cities might lead to the increase of firm-level environmental investment. Furthermore,there is no significant short-term intervention in the environmental indicators of pilot cities either. In sum,this paper provides empirical evidence for the environmental governance effect of natural resources accountability audit from the perspective of the government and firms,which enriches the literature on government auditing and environmental governance.