绿色绩效考核与区域环境治理——来自官员更替的证据

Environmental Assessment and Local Environmental Management: Evidence from the Replacements of the Municipal Party Secretaries

财政分权背景下的地方政府官员倾向于牺牲环境以获得短期经济增长,而环保政绩考核体系的建立使得区域环境质量成为决定官员升迁的另一重要因素。通过考察官员更替后的区域环境质量,以2006—2013年我国主要城市作为研究样本,可检验环保政绩考核体系对新任官员在环境保护和短期经济增长之间的权衡的影响。研究发现,仅在东部地区,异地调入的新任官员上任后,区域环境质量得到显著改善;且法制环境越完善、公众环境关注度越高以及地区市场化程度越高的地方,这种效应越强。在未来应进一步强调"绿色GDP"在干部晋升考核体系中的重要性,深入落实综合政绩考核机制,激发地方官员治理辖区内污染、保护环境的积极性。

Due to the pursuit of political promotion incentive based on economic growth, local officials have developed the economy at the cost of the natural environment. With the establishment of the environmental assessment system, the local environmental quality has become the primary consideration for the promotion of officials. Using the major cities in China in the period of 2006-2013 as a study sample, we selected environmental assessment as a new angle of view and empirically studied its influence on the tradeoff of local officials between local environmental quality and economic growth. We have found that the local environmental quality would improve when the new official is from a different city, and this applies to the eastern regions only. Through group testing, we have found the positive effect would be more obvious if the legal environment was sounder, or the public paid more attention to environment, or the city＇s market level was higher. We suggest that the evaluation mechanism of local officials should take into account the green GDP to a larger degree and inspire the enthusiasm of local officials.