加大行政奖惩力度是中国环境绩效改善的主要原因吗?

Is stronger punishment and reward system the main reason for improving environment performance in China?

"十一五"、"十二五"规划时期,中国单位GDP能耗、SO_2排放总量、COD排放总量等节能减排指标均实现了国家规划目标,这与"十五"计划三项指标均未完成形成鲜明对比。现有研究对此的解释存在宏观和微观层面上的不一致。其重要原因在于现有研究将环境绩效改善的原因完全归于行政奖惩所体现的正式制度的作用,而忽视了非正式制度对节能减排绩效的积极影响。本文建构了以包含正式激励和非正式激励的二元委托代理激励模型为基础的分析框架,利用基于717名不同级别官员的问卷数据,采用结构方程方法对上述模型进行了检验。实证结果表明,与约束性指标相关的正式制度中规定的11项奖惩措施所产生的激励对官员的环境治理行为力度并没有显著影响,而体现为顺应中央政府导向和上级领导注意力所代表的非正式制度激励对官员环境治理行为力度产生了显著影响。非正式制度激励对环境治理行为力度的影响存在两条路径。在第一条路径中,官员压力是中介变量,即非正式制度产生对官员压力的影响,官员压力又进一步影响官员环境治理行为。在这一路径中,晋升偏好、服从偏好为正向调节变量,正式奖惩的执行严格程度为负向调节变量。这一路径表明,官员晋升偏好越强、正式奖惩执行严格程度越弱,非正式制度激励对地方官员压力的影响越大;官员服从上级偏好程度越强,官员压力对环境治理行为力度的影响越大。在第二条路径中,非正式制度激励被认为直接影响环境治理行为力度,服务偏好是正向调节变量。这一路径表明,地方官员为人民服务的偏好越强,非正式激励对环境治理行为的影响越大。本文的研究发现调和了环境政策执行领域的理论冲突,为深化对中国"压力型"体制的理解提供实证证据。

During the11th and12th FiveYear Plan periods(FYP),China’s emission reduction indexes,such as per unit GDP energy consumption,sulfur dioxide(SO2)and chemical oxygen demand(COD)emissions,have all reached the expected targets,posing a sharp contrast with the failures of those goals in the10th FYP.Current studies have the inconformity for the explanation of such phenomenon at both macro and micro levels.Major reason for such difference maybe the fact that current research tends to attribute the improvement on environment governance solely to the impact of formal institutions but ignores the positive effects resulting from informal institutions.This paper conducts an empirical research from frame of principal agent model which contains both formal and informal incentives,to test our argument.Hinged on the data of717questionnaires from government officials at different levels and tested with structural equation model(SEM),this study shows that the11incentives created by formal institutions have no significant influence on officials’environmental governance performance.Obedience to the central government’s guidance and superior officials’attention,those incentives from informal institutions,are found to have significant impacts on the improvement.There are two approaches for informal institution to exert its impacts on environmental governance.In the first approach,the feeling of pressure among local officials becomes a mediator variable between informal institutions and officials’environmental governance performance.Officials’promotion preference and obedience preference are positive adjustment variables,where the strictness of implementing formal rulesis a negative adjustment variable.The effect of informal institutions increases as officials have stronger promotion preference and the strictness of formal incentives implementation declines.The mediate effect of pressure is positively influenced by officers’obedience preference.In the second pathway,informal institution could also affect environmental performance directly and is adjusted by officers’service preference.Stronger such preference to be,more influential of informal incentives would be.These findings help us to renew our theoretical knowledge of China’s policy implementation and government official incentives by explaining the previous theoretical paradox and providing empirical evidence of how China’s pressure driven system operates.