战略性环境与贸易政策能否促进出口企业环境研发创新——理论及基于中国的实证研究

Do Strategic Environmental and Trade Policies Promote Environmental R&D Innovation of Export Enterprises——Theory and Empirical Research Based on China

在“双碳”目标及环保“税”时代背景下,我国作为出口大国实施战略性环境贸易政策是否能激励出口企业环境研发创新及绿色转型?本文基于发展中国家企业实际状况,在战略性环境贸易政策框架中放松对称性假设并引入企业环境研发投资,构建一个南北两国异质性企业竞争出口至第三国的博弈模型,理论研究表明:实施出口补贴与环境税有助于激励出口企业环境研发投资,但环境税与企业环境研发投资间并非严格单调递增关系,即环境税严格性高于一定临界值可能会挤出环境技术更落后的南方企业环境研发投资并促使其采取减产策略以控制剧增的环境成本。由此,南方国家企业环境研发投资可能促成贸易各国放松环境规制并改变出口补贴与环境税之间的相关关系。制定创新友好型排放税并借助其与出口补贴的新型战略关系,有利于我国更有效地影响企业减排策略,促进研发创新投资。进一步,基于中国上市公司经济数据及碳税市场化环境政策试点数据的实证研究表明,我国当前的碳税水平促进了企业环境研发创新投资,其中东部地区企业相对于中西部地区企业、非国有制企业相对于国有制企业绿色创新效应更显著。

In the era of“dual carbon”goals and environmental tax,can China’s strategic environmental and trade policies encourage environmental R&D innovation and green transformation of export enterprises?This paper relaxes the symmetry assumptions to capture the actual situation of firms from developing countries and introduces corporate environmental R&D innovation investment in the strategic environmental and trade policy framework.We develop a game model where heterogeneous firms in the North and the South export to a third country,and it shows that both export subsidy and environmental tax incentivize export enterprises’investment in environmental R&D innovation.However,the relationship between environmental tax and corporate environmental R&D innovation investment is not strictly monotonously increasing.When the strictness of environmental tax is higher than a certain threshold,it may reduce environmental R&D innovation investment of enterprises in the South with backward environmental technology and prompt them to cut back production in order to control the increasing environmental costs.Therefore,environmental R&D innovation investment of enterprises in the South could lead to environmental deregulation in export countries and change the correlation between export subsidy and environmental tax.The government should formulate innovation-friendly environmental tax and use its new strategic linkage with export subsidy to effectively affect firms’emission reduction strategies and promote environmental R&D innovation investment.Further empirical research based on the data of Chinese listed firms and the carbon tax pilot in China shows that China’s current carbon tax stimulates corporate environmental R&D innovation investment.Specifically,the green innovation effect is more significant in the eastern region than in the central and western regions,and more significant for non-stateowned enterprises than for state-owned enterprises.