财政分权对环境污染的影响--基于江浙两省24个城市工业二氧化硫排放的实证检验

The Influence of Fiscal Decentralization on Environmental Pollution:An Empirical Test on the Industrial Sulfur Dioxide Emission in the 24 Cities of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces

长三角地区在经济快速增长的同时,也面临严峻的环境问题,这与财政分权制度的关系密不可分。基于我国江浙两省24个城市2012—2017年的数据,采用随机效应下的工具变量模型,实证考察城市层面财政分权与工业二氧化硫排放的关系。研究表明,财政分权的提高会伴随工业二氧化硫排放量的增加,其深层次的原因是以GDP作为官员考核指标的机制存在缺陷;贸易开放程度高往往会对环境产生负面影响,工业化水平的快速发展不利于环境保护;增加科学技术支出有利于减缓工业二氧化硫的排放强度;能源结构和人口密度对环境影响不显著。因此,需要完善地方官员考核机制,处理好地方经济与环境治理之间的关系;合理降低财政分权程度,提高地方政府财权和事权的匹配度;配合环保科技的引导和创新,达到改善环境质量的目的。

Along with the rapid economic growth,the Yangtze River Delta Region is also faced with severe environmental problems,which are closely related to the fiscal decentralization system.Based on the data(2012-2017)from 24 cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces,using the G2SLS random-effects IV regression,this paper investigates the relationship between fiscal decentralization and industrial sulfur dioxide emissions at the urban level.The results show that the increase of fiscal decentralization is accompanied by the increase of industrial sulfur dioxide emissions,the underlying reason of which is that the mechanism of GDP as an official evaluation index has its defects;high degree of trade openness has negative effects on the environment and rapid development of industrialization level goes against environmental protection;and increase of expenditure on science and technology is beneficial to reducing industrial sulfur dioxide emission intensity while energy structure and population density extend no remarkable influence on environment.Therefore,local official examination mechanism should be perfected and the relation between local economy and environmental governance handled properly;degree of fiscal decentralization should be reasonably reduced and the matching rate between local government financial power and official authority increased;cooperating with the guidance and innovation of environmental protection technology to achieve the aim of improving environmental quality.