环境规制成本如何影响污染企业绿色转型升级?——基于技术学习和吸收的视角

How Does Environmental Regulation Cost Affect Green Transformations of Polluting Firms?-Based on the Perspective of Technology Learning and Absorption

本文以2015~2021年间A股重污染行业上市公司作为研究对象,以2018年环保费改税以及部分省份征收标准调整为背景,采用双重差分法检验环境规制成本对重污染企业绿色技术转型的影响及其具体作用机制。结果表明:相比于标准平移地区,征收标准提高地区的重污染企业研发投入显著提升。进一步检验表明,在较容易获取外部知识的环境下,以及在工艺研发投入比例较高的重污染企业中,研发投入的增加主要用于学习和吸收外界已有的技术,从而实现绿色转型升级。研究还发现,征收标准的提高降低了重污染企业所在地的污染物排放。异质性分析发现,征收标准提高后,国有企业研发投入比非国有企业增长更显著。上述结果综合表明,环境规制在企业绿色治理当中发挥了积极的作用,可以通过促进技术的学习和吸收来改进污染企业的生产流程,赋能企业绿色转型。

This paper investigates the impact of environment tax-for-fees reform on green transformation with firms in high-pollution industries from 2015 to 2021.With a difference in difference research design,the results show that the increase of environmental protection tax leads to substantial increases in firms'R&D spending.Further analysis indicates that an increase in R&D investment does not result in an increase in patentable innovations for high-pollution firms with easily access to external knowledge and high process R&D input.Instead,it is mainly manifested in continuing learning and absorbing existing production technologies from the outside,aiming to achieve green transformation,thereby reducing the pollutant emissions in areas where polluting firms are located.The cross sectional test shows that the increase in R&D spending is more pronounced in SOEs.Overall,the above findings imply that market-driven environmental regulation has played an effective role in green governance,stimulating polluting firms to invest in R&D to expand absorptive capacity rather than to develop new patentable innovations.