财政压力、高能耗企业与碳排放——基于教育事权改革的准自然实验

Fiscal Pressure, Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions: A Quasi Natural Experiment Based on the Educational Authority Reform

现阶段,我国处于大规模减税降费以及外部疫情冲击时期,地方政府财政压力剧增,这对地方碳排放产生何种影响,现有研究相对匮乏。本文借助2010年教育事权改革的准自然实验衡量财政压力的外生变化,采用连续双重差分方法实证考察地方财政压力对碳排放的影响。研究结果显示:(1)教育事权改革目标所产生的财政压力显著增加了地方碳排放强度,这表明地方政府在感受到财政压力时,会通过其他方式进行化解进而影响碳排放;(2)地方政府为缓解财政压力,会施政于高能耗企业,依仗其产值大且创税能力强的特点,让其扩大产能,获得较多的税收等收入,这将导致大量碳排放。本研究对于今后如何化解财政压力,以及如何处理好地方财政与碳排放的关系具有尤为重要的借鉴意义。

At present, China is in the period of large-scale tax and fee reduction and external impact from the pandemic, and the fiscal pressure of local governments is increasing rapidly. There are relatively few studies on such impact on local carbon emissions. This paper uses the quasi natural experiment of education authority reform in 2010 to measure the exogenous change in fiscal pressure, and uses the difference-in-differences method to empirically investigate the impact of local fiscal pressure on carbon emissions. The results show that:(1) the fiscal pressure caused by the goal of education authority reform significantly increases the local carbon emission intensity. This suggests that when local governments feel the fiscal pressure, they will use other ways to relieve it and thus affect carbon emissions.(2) In order to relieve fiscal pressure, local governments will urge energy-intensive enterprises which have large output and strong tax generating capacity to expand production capacity, in order to increase their tax revenue. This will lead to a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions. This paper has particularly important reference significance for how to relieve fiscal pressure and how to deal with the relationship between local finance and carbon emissions in the future.