事权下放与基层环境治理——来自“扩权强县”改革的证据

The Division of Responsibilities and Grassroots Environmental Governance:Evidence from the“County-Power-Expansion”Reform

事权划分是目前我国省以下财政体制改革的主要问题之一,也是影响地方政府治理效能的关键因素。不过,对于备受关注的环境治理问题,现有研究难以理清事权划分与环境治理之间的关系。为此,本文选取“扩权强县”改革作为事权下放实验进行研究。基于2000—2010年县级面板数据与双重差分方法,本文发现地方管理权的增加加剧了环境污染:事权下放改革县工业废气排放量增加了26.12亿标立方米,该增加量占样本平均水平的33.86%。就影响机制而言,本文发现事权下放改革主要会通过加剧污染的产生和阻碍环境污染的治理两方面影响辖区环境污染。

The division of responsibilities is the main contradiction in the current reform of China's sub-provincial fiscal system and the key to improving the effectiveness of local government governance.However,the relationship between the division of responsibilities and environmental governance has not been clarified yet.In this paper,we study the effect of“empowerment and strengthening of counties”reform on environmental pollution.Based on county-level panel data from 2000 to 2010 and the DID method,we find that the increase in local management responsibilities exacerbates environmental pollution:industrial emissions in the reformed counties increased by 2.612 billion standard cubic meters,which is 33.86%of the sample average.In terms of the mechanism,we find that the reform mainly affects environmental pollution in the jurisdictions through two aspects:intensifying environmental pollution generation and hindering the governance of environmental pollution.