外资进入如何影响企业污染减排?——基于行业关联角度的分析

How does Foreign Capital Inflows Affect Enterprises’Pollution Reduction?——Analysis Based on Industry Correlation

外商投资对于推动中国产业链清洁化具有不容忽视的作用。本文利用1998—2014年中国工业企业数据、中国工业企业污染排放数据以及投入产出表,从行业关联的角度考察外资进入对企业污染排放的影响及其作用机制。研究发现,外资进入不仅降低了同行业企业污染排放,而且通过前后向关联效应降低了上下游企业污染排放水平。机制检验发现,行业内外资进入通过提升同行业企业末端处理水平实现企业污染减排;下游行业外资进入通过改善上游企业能源结构实现企业污染减排;外资进入及其前后向关联效应通过提升研发创新、产品创新从而实现企业污染减排。异质性分析发现,对于高污染密集度、非国有企业,外资进入的污染减排效应更为明显。拓展研究发现,外资进入可以通过行业关联效应降低上下游企业二氧化碳排放强度。本文丰富和拓展了外商投资溢出效应理论,为外资引进稳中提质与实现“十四五”节能减排目标提供了政策启示。

Foreign investment plays an important role in promoting the cleanliness of China’s industrial chain and helps to promote China’s industrial pollution reduction,green expansion,and high-quality growth.This paper examines the influence of foreign capital inflows on enterprises’pollution reduction from the perspective of industry correlation and discusses the underlying mechanism.Using the data of industrial enterprises,pollution emissions of industrial enterprises,and the input-output table in China from 1998 to 2014,this paper constructs the horizontal spillover,forward correlation,and backward correlation indicators of foreign capital inflows and enterprise pollution emission indicators.Through the analysis of typical facts,the findings reveal that foreign-funded enterprises exhibit lower levels of pollution emissions and possess better pollution control technology and cleaner industry structure compared to counterparts,which provides basic facts for the following empirical research.Then,in the empirical study,this paper indicates that foreign capital inflows reduce the pollution emissions of enterprises in the same industry and those of upstream and downstream enterprises through the forward and backward correlation effects.This result is still valid after a series of robustness tests.Mechanism analysis shows that foreign capital inflows in the industry improve the end-of-pipe treatment level of enterprises in the same industry,thereby facilitating pollution reduction,and those in the downstream industry improve the energy structure of upstream enterprises,leading to pollution reduction.Moreover,foreign capital inflows and the backward and forward correlation effects promote R&D and product innovation,ultimately reducing pollution.However,this impact is more pronounced for enterprises with high pollution intensity and non-state-owned enterprises.The expansion study reveals that foreign capital inflows can reduce the carbon dioxide emission intensity of upstream and downstream enterprises through the industry correlation effect.This paper makes marginal contributions as follows.First,it examines the impact of foreign capital inflows on pollution reduction of enterprises and analyzes the underlying mechanism comprehensively,which helps to overcome the problem of missing variables caused by only examining a single dimension in the existing literature.Second,it investigates the influence of foreign capital inflows in downstream industries on the pollution reduction of upstream enterprises,which fills the gap in this part.Therefore,it is crucial to stabilize the stock of foreign investment and constantly improve the quality of investment introduction.In addition,efforts should be made to promote enterprises’engagement in exchanges and cooperation with foreign-funded enterprises in the fields of cleaner production and green and low-carbon management and acquisition of related production technologies and management experience.