绿色财政政策的碳减排效应——来自“节能减排财政政策综合示范城市”的证据

The Carbon Emission Reduction Effect of Green Fiscal Policy: Evidence from the “National Comprehensive Demonstration City of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy”

实施有效的绿色财政政策是推动节能减排,确保实现“碳达峰、碳中和”的重要手段。文章以“节能减排财政政策综合示范城市”为切入点,借助双重差分法评估了绿色财政政策的碳减排效应。研究发现:(1)节能减排财政政策综合示范城市建设显著降低了示范城市的碳排放水平,其碳减排效应在示范城市建设后的第二年后开始逐年显现,并随着年份的推移逐渐增强。(2)机制分析表明,示范城市建设的碳减排效应主要是通过减少能源消耗、降低单位GDP能耗、推动产业低碳化和提升绿色技术创新等途径实现的。(3)异质性分析表明,示范城市建设对非老工业基地城市的碳减排效应大于老工业基地城市,对非资源型城市的碳减排效应大于资源型城市。(4)成本与收益分析表明,开展示范城市建设虽付出了一定的财政成本,但其在促进非碳指标减排和经济增长方面发挥了积极作用。文章为中国未来实施更加有效的绿色财政政策,顺利实现“碳达峰、碳中和”目标提供了重要的经验证据与政策启示。

Climate change is a major global challenge facing mankind today and poses a serious threat to human health and sustainable social development. In response to climate change, the Chinese government has proposed the goal of peaking CO2 emissions by 2030 and the vision of achieving carbon neutrality by2060. Green fiscal policy is undoubtedly an important tool to promote “carbon peak and carbon neutrality”,and has received increasing attention from academics. However, the relevant literature does not cover the evaluation of carbon emission reduction effect.This paper evaluates the carbon emission reduction effect of green fiscal policy using the DID method with the panel data of 285 cities in China from 2003 to 2017, taking the “National Comprehensive Demonstration City of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy” in 2011 as an entry point. We find that the demonstration city construction significantly reduces the carbon emission level, and the carbon emission reduction effect starts to appear after the second year of policy implementation and gradually increases with the year. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon emission reduction effect of demonstration city construction is stronger for non-old industrial cities than for old industrial cities, and for non-resource cities than for resource cities. The mechanism analysis shows that the demonstration city construction achieves a win-win situation of “carbon reduction” and “growth” through the mechanisms of energy saving and efficiency improvement, industrial structure upgrading, and technological innovation.The academic value of this paper could be concluded in three aspects: First, taking the “National Comprehensive Demonstration City of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy” as an entry point,this paper directly evaluates the carbon emission reduction effect of green fiscal policy, which makes a strong addition to the literature on the environmental effect of fiscal policy. Second, with the help of night light data,this paper constructs the carbon emission data at the urban annual level from 2003 to 2017, uses the DID method to better alleviate the problems of endogeneity and data limitation existing in the literature, and more effectively evaluates the effectiveness of green fiscal policy. Third, this paper not only evaluates the carbon emission reduction effect of demonstration city construction, but also conducts an in-depth investigation on its mechanism, and systematically examines its cost-benefit through the comparative analysis of economic effect and financial expenditure cost. It provides empirical support for the adoption of green fiscal policy to achieve the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.