生产网络视角下的碳税制度

Carbon Tax in China:A Production Network Perspective

本文从生产网络视角,探究对能源消费部门征收碳税如何通过生产网络联动影响各部门生产投入、产出及碳排放。由于生产网络的存在,征收碳税不仅会通过减少征税部门产出降低经济体总碳排放,还会通过生产网络上下游关联引发间接影响。因此,基于部门在生产网络中所处位置有针对性地征收碳税才能实现最大的减排效果。本文构建生产网络视角下的碳税模型,结合2020年中国投入产出表与估算的42部门、153部门碳排放数据,模拟分析征收小额碳税对征税部门劳动投入、产量、碳排放以及经济体总碳排放的影响。结果表明,对各部门征收碳税引发的减排效果与部门直接排放量的排序并非一一对应;对42部门中“石油、炼焦产品和核燃料加工品”“电力、热力的生产和供应”“金属冶炼和压延加工品”征税带来的减碳效果最明显,尤其是“石油、炼焦产品和核燃料加工品”部门,其碳税减排效应和碳减排效率均位于42部门中的首位,因此在制定碳税政策时可予以重点考虑。

On September 22,2020,President Xi Jinping announced at the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly that China would strive to peak CO 2 emissions before 2030,and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.China is taking pragmatic actions towards these goals.As a responsible country,China is committed to building a global climate governance system that is fair,rational,cooperative and beneficial to all,and makes its due contribution to tackling climate change using its greatest strengths and most effective solutions.China's energy conservation and emission reduction policy system originated in the 1980s.With transition from a planned economy to a market economy,China's energy-saving and emission reduction policies have gradually transitioned from administrative directives to market-oriented economic incentives,accumulating rich experience in reducing carbon emissionsduring the past 40 years.The establishment of the dualcarbon goals in 2020 provides clearer goals and greater challenges for China's emission reduction undertakings.Carbon pricing mechanism is an important market-based policy option adopted by many countries and regions to address climate issues,and it mainly includes two methods:carbon tax and carbon emissions trading.Carbon emissions trading is currently the core market regulation mechanism in China.China proceeded carbon emissions trading pilots in seven provinces and cities in 2013,and the carbon trading market was officially launched in July 2021.It covered more than 4 billion tons of emissions,becoming the world's largest carbon trading market once the market went online.Carbon trading is playing an important role in the process of China's emission reduction,but its effect is limited.Carbon tax,another representative market incentive policy tool,is frequently advocated as a cost-effective instrumentin reducing emissions,so it might be necessary to be introduced to China in due time to make up for the shortcomings of current carbon trading policies.Many countries or regions have successfully achieved the synergistic development of carbon tax and carbon trading.Therefore,the feasibility of levying a carbon tax in China and how to realize the coordinated development of carbon tax and carbon market are hot topics of research.Studies on China's carbon tax system mainly focus on the feasibility analysis of introducing a carbon tax and using large-scale macro models such as“Computable General Equilibrium”(CGE)to simulate the impact of carbon tax on emission reduction and economics.Especially after the launch of the carbon emissions trading pilot in 2013,domestic research on the carbon tax has been concerned more about the design of the carbon tax mechanism,and the coordinated development of carbon tax and carbon trading,while research on quantitative analysis has stagnated.Earlier quantitative research on China's carbon tax system based on CGE models are complicated,with high computational costs,and it is difficult to clarify the policy transmission mechanism.Imposing carbon ta x would have macroeconomic and environmental impacts.The economy acts as a complex network that closely connects the production sector with the consumption sector.The production network contains rich information about the structure and interactions of industries.Acemoglu et al.(2012)find that the production network is an important channel for the propagation of sectoral individualshocks into macroshocks.Microeconomic idiosyncratic shocks may lead to aggregate fluctuationsin the presence of intersectoral input-output linkages.Therefore,when formulating or evaluating policies,it is not comprehensive enough to consider the direct impact alone,but necessary to take the aggregate effects caused by the production network into account.The propagation mechanism proposed by Acemoglu et al.(2012)also applies to the carbon tax.King et al.(2019)found that sector-specific carbon tax changes can have complex genera l equilibrium effects in the presence of intersectoral linkages.They provide an analytical characterization of how incremental taxes on emissions of any set of sectors impact aggregate emissions,thereby offering a novel perspective for the analysis of carbon taxes.In this paper,we focus on theeffects of carbon tax in China from the perspective of production networks.We first calculate sectoral carbon emissions generated from energy consumption in 2020 and estimate the embodied carbon flow matrix based on Chinese 42-sector and 153-sector input-output tables.Then we simulate how an incremental sector-specific carbon tax influences the economy's total carbon emiss ion through the intersectoral production network linkage as well as the impact on the labor input,output and carbon emission of the taxed sector drawing on the model constructed by King et al.(2019).We find that,due to the existence of production networks,the imposition of a carbon tax will not only reduce the total carbon emissions of the economy by decreasing the output of the taxed sector,but also trigger ind irect effects through the upstream and downstream linkages.Therefore,targeting sectors based on their position within the production network can achieve a greater reduction in aggregate emissions than taxing sectors solely based on their direct emissions.The simulation results show that the sectoral ranking of the carbon reduction effect and direct emissions does not correspond one-to-one.Taxing“Petroleum,Coking Products and Processed Nuclear Fuel Products”,“Production and Supply of Electricity and Heat”,and“Metal Smelting and Rolling Processed Products”among the 42 sectorsor taxing“Production and Supply of Electricity and Heat”,“Refined Petroleum and Processed Nuclear Fuel Products”and“Rolled Steel Products”among the 153 sectors will bring the most significantcarbon reduction effect.As the above sectors are the main suppliers of raw materials and major carbon emitters in the production network,imposing carbon tax will prompt them to reform their production technologies and optimize their energy structures,thereby achieving an effective reduction in the total carbon emissions of the economy through their upstream and downstream influences.In addition,taxing on“Petroleum,Coking Products and Processed Nuclear Fuel Products”can bring the biggest decrease in total carbon emissions with a smaller drop of its own production.