地方政府税收竞争、邻近效应与环境污染

Local tax competition,neighborhood effects and environmental pollution

近年来众多研究表明地方政府税收竞争是引起环境污染的重要原因,但税收政策的空间邻近效应对环境污染的影响却较少受到关注。本文首先构建了一个包含三地区的局部均衡模型,从理论上得出降低本地税率会增加本地环境污染,而邻近地区提高税率也会导致本地环境污染加剧的命题。接着采用2001—2015年30个省(市)空间面板数据,基于空间自滞后模型(SLX)分析地方政府税收竞争对环境污染的影响,发现:(1)降低本地实际税率会导致该地区污染排放量的增加,而增加本地实际税率会导致该地区污染物排放量的减少,地方政府实际税率竞争采取的是"逐底竞争"策略。(2)税收政策的邻近效应对环境污染有显著的正的影响,即邻近地区降低实际税率水平会使本地的环境污染水平下降,而邻近地区提高实际税率会增加本地环境污染水平。(3)税收政策的邻近效应导致污染企业转移具有"亲市场环境"、"亲空间距离"的特性,而对邻近地区综合技术水平不敏感。即在同等条件情况下,受税收政策的空间邻近溢出影响,污染企业转移会首先考虑市场环境较好的地区,其次是当前企业所在地与转移目的地之间的距离。这意味着,在区域环境治理过程中,一方面应改变唯GDP的考核体制,建立"绿色官员"晋升渠道。另一方面,中央政府在环境治理过程中除做好顶层设计之外,还应使地方政府意识到单个政府的环境治理行为无助于区域环境质量的改善,区域环境治理需要区域间地方政府达成合作共识。最后,地方政府还应意识到单纯实施税收优惠政策不但较难吸引到有竞争力企业,而且还可能会加剧地区环境污染。应通过完善基础设施建设,优化投资环境等,以吸引到合适的企业,并促使其使用绿色技术,实现经济发展与环境保护双赢。

In recent years,many studies have shown that local tax competition is an important reason of environmental pollution,but the impact of the spatial proximity effect of tax policy on environmental pollution has received less attention. In this paper,we first construct a partial equilibrium model that includes three regions. Thus,the proposition could be theoretically obtained that reducing the local tax rate will increase the local environmental pollution,while increasing the tax rate in the neighboring areas will also lead to more pollution of the local environment. Then,this paper uses spatial panel data of China’s 30 provinces from 2001 to 2015,to analyze the influence of local tax competition on environmental pollution and its proximity effects based on the spatial lag of X model（ SLX）. And we find that：（1）reducing the actual local tax rate will lead to an increase in pollution emissions in the region,and vice versa. The strategy of‘race to the bottom’is adopted in the process of local tax competition;（2）the proximity effect of tax policy has a significantly positive impact on environmental pollution. Lowering the effective tax rate in the vicinity will result in a reduction in the level of local environmental pollution,but raising the actual tax rate in the neighboring areas will increase the level of local environmental pollution;（3）the transfer of polluting enterprises caused by the proximity effect of tax policies has the characteristics of‘pro-market environment’and ‘pro-space distance’. However,it is insensitive to the comprehensive technical level of the neighboring local government. That is to say,in the same situation,affected by spillover of spatial proximity of tax policy,the transfer of pollution enterprises will firstly consider the area with better market environment,and secondly consider the distance between the current enterprise location and the transfer destination. This means that in the process of regional environmental governance,on the one hand,we should only change the assessment system of GDP and establishes the promotion channel of‘green officials’. On the other hand,the central government needs to do the top-level design in the process of environmental governance; meanwhile the local governments needs to realize that the environmental governance of a single government does not help improve the quality of the region ’s environment,and regional environmental governance needs regional governments to reach a consensus on cooperation. Moreover,the local government should also realize that simply implementing preferential tax policies will not only make it more difficult to attract competitive enterprises,but may also aggravate regional environmental pollution. Attracting appropriate enterprises to achieve a win-win situation between economic development and environmental protection needs further improvement of infrastructure construction, optimization of investment environment and the use of green technology in Enterprises.