中间品贸易自由化、环境管制与企业减排

Input Trade Liberalization, Environmental Regulation and Firm Emission Reduction

打好污染防治攻坚战的关键在于微观企业的减排行为。本文从清洁技术选择的视角构建了一个中间品贸易自由化影响企业污染排放强度的理论框架,在此基础上,利用1998~2007年中国工业企业污染排放与生产的合并数据,选取水污染的典型代表工业废水、化学需氧量和大气污染的典型代表工业废气、二氧化硫四种污染物构建企业污染排放强度综合指标进行检验。研究表明:与理论预期一致,中间品贸易自由化显著降低了中国企业的污染排放强度,有助于企业减排。采用三阶段最小二乘法进行的机制检验结果显示,通过中间品进口的种类效应、质量效应和知识溢出效应,中间品贸易自由化促进了企业选择清洁技术进而实现减排。最后,本文还发现中间品贸易自由化这一市场化改革对政府环境管制倒逼形成的企业减排效应具有补充作用。本文的研究对中国推进贸易体制改革和打好污染防治攻坚战具有一定的启示意义。

The key to fighting the battle of pollution prevention and control lies in the emission reduction behavior of micro-firms.From the perspective of clean technology selection,this paper constructs a theoretical framework for the impact of input trade liberalization on firm emission intensity.Based on the merged data of pollution emission and production of China′s industrial firms from 1998 to 2007,this paper constructs a comprehensive index of firm emission intensity by selecting four pollutants,namely,industrial waste water and chemical oxygen demand,typical representatives of water pollution,and industrial waste gas and sulfur dioxide,typical representatives of atmospheric pollution,to test.This paper shows that consistent with the theoretical expectation,input trade liberalization significantly reduces Chinese firms′emission intensity.The results of mechanism test adopting three-stage least square method display that through the variety effect,quality effect and knowledge spillover effect of intermediate input imports,input trade liberalization promotes firms to select clean technology and thus realize emission reduction.Finally,the result also shows that the input trade liberalization,a market-oriented reform,has a complementary effect on the emission reduction effect of firms formed by government environmental regulation.This paper has certain enlightenment significance for China to push forward the reform of trade system and fight the battle of pollution prevention and control in the decisive period of building a well-off society in an all-round way.