河长制视域下环境分权的减排效应研究

Emission reduction effect of environmental decentralization:from the perspective of the river chief system

环境政策究竟应该由中央政府制定还是由地方政府制定?中央政府的环境政策效应与地方政府的环境政策效应孰优孰劣?这些问题的本质是关于环境分权和环境集权的问题。从我国河长制制度创新出发,认为河长制的本质在于环境分权,从地方政府行为视角阐释了环境分权影响环境污染的内在机理。在此基础上,基于我国30个省(市、自治区)2000—2015年省级面板数据,采用系统广义矩估计方法实证研究了环境分权对我国环境污染的影响效应。结果表明,相较于环境集权而言,环境分权更有利于降低我国的环境污染水平,意味着环境分权是实现我国节能减排、绿色发展的有效举措。引入环境行政分权、环境监察分权和环境监测分权的稳健性检验表明,行政上、监察上和监测上的环境分权都有利于降低我国的环境污染水平,进一步表明环境分权是节能降耗的重要手段。为我国环境治理与河长制的实施提供了新的研究思路及理论支撑,对于有序推进我国环境治理具有重要的参考价值,也为制定科学合理的环境治理政策提供理论依据。

Whether environmental policy should be formulated by the central government or local government,and whether the effect of the central government ＇s environmental policy is better than that of local government,is essentially a choice on decentralization or centralization of environment. Based on the innovation of Chinese river chief system,this paper argues that the essence of river chief system lies in environmental decentralization,and explains the internal mechanism of environmental decentralization from the perspective of local government ＇s behavior. Then,we employ System Generalized Method of Moments to investigate the impact of environmental decentralization on environmental pollution in China,using panel data of 30 provinces（cities, districts） in China from 2000 to 2015. The results show that environmental decentralization plays a more conducive role on reducing the level of environmental pollution than environmental centralization,which means that environmental decentralization is an effective measure to achieve the ambition of energysaving emission reduction and green development in China. The robustness test of environmental administrative decentralization, environmental supervising decentralization and environmental monitoring decentralization show that environmental decentralization in administrative, supervisory and monitoring is conducive to reducing the level of environmental pollution in our country,which further indicates that environmental decentralization is important to help save energy. This study provides new research ideas and theoretical support for environmental governance and the river chief system implementation in China,it has important reference value for the orderly advancement of environmental governance in China,and also provides theoretical basis for formulating scientific and reasonable policies of environmental governance.