地方政府竞争、环境规制与绿色发展效率

Competition among local governments,environmental regulation and green development efficiency

绿色发展效率是新时代中国特色社会主义经济转向高质量发展的重要衡量指标,政府主导的中国经济发展体制决定了地方政府竞争和环境规制是影响绿色发展效率的主要影响因素。文章在识别地方政府竞争、环境规制对于绿色发展效率的作用机制的基础上,基于2001—2015年中国30个省级区域面板数据,利用SBM-DEA方向性距离函数测算了包含能源消耗与非期望产出的2001—2015年省级区域绿色发展效率,并使用动态面板GMM模型进行了实证分析。结果显示:环境规制对于绿色发展效率的提高具有促进作用,环境规制对于保护环境、促进经济高质量发展,具有正向推动作用。地方政府竞争对绿色发展效率的提高具有抑制作用,地方政府间的经济赶超、官员的晋升激励,导致地方以破坏生态环境为代价更快地发展经济。地方政府竞争与环境规制的共同作用对于绿色发展效率的提高具有抑制作用,地方政府在发展经济与保护环境之间,更多地选择了更快发展经济,而忽视了经济发展的质量,破坏了生态环境。地方政府在经济赶超与环境规制之间的选择摇摆不定,导致地方政府的政策不具有持续性,进一步导致绿色发展效率在一个低水平上持续波动。东、中、西部地区均存在由于地方政府竞争所引致的环境规制力度不足,环境规制政策存在着波动性,进而抑制了绿色发展效率的提高。因此应当进一步完善地方政府官员的考核体系,引导建立起以高质量发展为导向的地方政府竞争制度,加强环境规制的力度,加强对企业技术创新的支持,鼓励企业发展绿色技术,提高绿色发展效率。

Green development efficiency is an important indicator for the transformation of socialist economy with Chinese characteristics into high-quality development in the new era. In the government-led Chinese economic development system, and environmental regulation are the determinants of the green development efficiency. Based on the recognition, as well as environmental regulation on green development efficiency, this paper used the SBM-DEA directional distance function to calculate the green development efficiency on panel data for 30 provinces in China over the period 2001-2015, including energy consumption and undesired output. In addition, an empirical analysis was carried out by using the dynamic panel GMM model. The results showed that environmental regulation had a positive effect on improving green development efficiency, protecting environment and promoting high-quality development of economy;the competition among local governments had a retraining effect on improving green development efficiency;the economic surpassing among local governments and the promotion incentive of officials resulted in the outcome that local governments chased high-speed economic development at the cost of environment;the joint effect of competition among local governments and environmental regulation had a restraining effect on the improvement of green development efficiency. The local governments chose to chase high-speed economic development while neglecting the quality of economic development, and destroying the ecological environment. Moreover, the local governments vacillated between economic overtaking and environmental protection, leading to the unsustainability of local policies and caused continuous volatility of green development efficiency at a lower level. Insufficient force of environmental regulation caused by the competition among local governments existed in eastern, central and western regions in China, and environmental regulation policy had volatility, thus restraining the improvement of green development efficiency. Therefore, we should improve the assessment criteria of local government officials, guide the establishment of a competitive development-oriented local government system, strengthen the strength of environmental regulation, strengthen the support for technological innovation of enterprises, encourage enterprises to develop green technology and improve the efficiency of green development.