地方政府竞争对环境规制影响的动态研究--基于中国式分权视角

A Dynamic Study on the Impact of Local Government Competition on Environmental Regulation: Based on Chinese Decentralization Perspective

随着经济发展水平提高,地方政府竞争对环境规制的影响有所变化,且这些变化与财政分权、政绩考核指标的变化有关,本文利用中国2003—2011年269个城市面板数据从实证角度验证这一问题。结果发现:整体来看,2003年以来,随着经济发展水平上升,地方政府竞争对环境规制呈现倒"N"型影响。其具体原因为:从财政分权角度看,随着事权和财权增加,地方政府竞争对环境规制的影响呈现倒"U"型;关于政绩考核指标,综合基准回归和稳健分析,经济增速越快,地方政府竞争对环境规制的负向影响越大,随着减排率降低(污染物排放量增长率提高),地方政府竞争对环境规制的影响呈现先正后负的特征。本文为评价财政分权、地方政府竞争对环境规制影响的变化提供了实证依据,并评价了政绩考核指标在环境规制水平变化过程中发挥的作用,对如何提升环境规制水平有一定启发。

At present,how to improve the environmental quality is a hot issue.Many scholars believe that China's fiscal decentralization is an important and even the main reason for the local government to relax environmental regulation to achieve rapid economic growth.The effect of local government competition is changing as the economic level changes,and these changes are related to fiscal decentralization and performance evaluation indicators.Based on this,using 269 cities panel data of China in 2003-2011,we estimate the impact of local government competition on the intensity of environmental regulation.The results show that:since 2003,with the level of economic development,local government competition on the intensity of environmental regulation showed an inverted N type.This paper analyzes the reasons for this phenomenon:from the perspective of fiscal decentralization,with the increase of fiscal expenditure decentralization and fiscal revenue decentralization power,the impact of local government competition on environmental regulation presents inverted U type;On the performance evaluation indicators,comprehensive benchmark regression and robust analysis find that the faster the economic growth,the greater the negative impact of local government competition on environmental regulation;The higher the growth rate of pollution emissions,the impact of local government competition on environmental regulation presents inverted"U"type.This study provides an empirical basis for evaluation of local government competition on environmental regulation,and evaluates the effects of promotion index change in the whole level of environmental regulation in the process.It also has certain inspiration in enhancing the level of environmental regulation.