城市低碳治理与绿色经济增长——基于低碳城市试点政策的准自然实验

Low-carbon Governance and Green Economic Growth—Quasi-natural Experiment from Chinese Low-carbon Pilot Policy

本文以“低碳城市”试点政策的准自然实验为基础,采用2004—2016年中国286个城市的面板数据,基于双重差分法考察城市低碳治理对绿色经济增长的影响效应。研究发现:相较于非试点城市,低碳试点城市的低碳治理建设显著促进了绿色经济增长。绿色经济增长分解发现,城市低碳治理通过绿色技术变动推动绿色经济增长。区域异质性检验发现,绿色增长效应在东部和西部城市更为显著。从动态效应而言,城市低碳治理的绿色经济增长效应具有滞后的长期政策效应。拓展性检验发现,制定公开减排目标对低碳治理具有显著促进效应,主要体现于环境目标硬约束方面。机制检验发现,城市低碳治理通过强化环境政策力度、降低城市碳排放、提高能源利用效率、优化产业结构、推动绿色技术创新等渠道推动绿色经济增长。

Accurately evaluating the policy effect of low-carbon governance on the development of green economy is of great significance to deepening low-carbon governance and promoting high-quality economic development.This paper uses the“low-carbon city”pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment,based on panel data from 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2016,and based on the difference-in-difference method to evaluate the theoretical mechanism and effect of low-carbon governance on green economic growth.The result shows that compared with non-low-carbon pilot cities,low-carbon governance significantly promotes green economic growth.Through the decomposition of green economic growth,low-carbon governance promotes green economic growth through green technology development.The regional heterogeneity test shows that the green growth effect is more significant in eastern and western cities.In terms of dynamic effects,the green economic growth effect of low-carbon governance has a lagging long-term policy effect.Extensive testing shows that the establishment of public emission reduction targets has a significant effect on the promotion of low-carbon governance,which is mainly reflected in the hard constraints of environmental targets.The mechanism test shows that low-carbon governance promotes green economic growth through environmental policies,reducing carbon emissions,improving energy efficiency,optimizing industrial structure,and promoting green technology innovation.