环保税能推动我国经济发展与环境保护实现双赢吗?——最低税率与实现路径

Can Environmental Protection Tax Promote China's Economic Development and Environmental Protection to Achieve a Win-win:Minimum Tax Rate and Realization Path

如何实现经济发展与环境保护的双赢是新时代我国推进高质量发展的重要研究课题。为此,基于我国排污收费的政策实践,本文分析探讨了环保税兼顾环境绩效与经济绩效的政策效果及其微观路径。研究结果表明:排污收费对企业污染减排和生产率提升具有显著的先抑制后促进的非线性影响。只有当排污收费水平达到一定阈值时,排污收费才可能推动企业加快清洁生产型技术进步,进而对企业减排和生产率提升产生正向促进作用。这意味着,环保税这种增强版的排污收费制度具有实现我国经济发展与环境保护双赢的潜在政策红利。除绿色技术创新外,资本更新也是企业加快清洁生产型技术进步的重要渠道。进一步估算发现,目前我国环保税税率的设计范围总体上合理,但绝大部分省份实际开征的环保税税率较低、可能低于环保税发挥正向激励效果的阈值。本文研究发现对当前我国环保税的优化调整具有直接的政策启示意义。

How to achieve a win-win between economic development and environmental protection is an important research topic in the new era for China to promote high-quality development.Based on the policy practice of China's pollution charges,this paper investigates the policy effect of China's new environmental protection tax to balance environmental performance with economic performance and the underlying micro mechanisms.Results show that charging pollution has a significant non-linear effect on enterprises'pollution abatement and productivity improvement.Only when the pollution charges reach a threshold can it push enterprises to accelerate clean production-based technological progress and thus positively contribute to emission reduction and productivity improvement.This implies that the implementation of an environmental protection tax with a higher level of pollution charges has the potential policy dividend of achieving a win-win for China's economic development and environmental protection.Moreover,in addition to green technology innovation,capital renewal is also an important channel for enterprises to accelerate their clean production-based technological progress.Further estimates show that the current design range of environmental protection tax rates in China is generally reasonable,but the actual tax rates in most provinces are low and may be lower than the threshold at which the environmental protection tax would have positive effects.The findings of this paper have direct policy implications for the optimal adjustment of the current environmental protection tax in China.