摘要
从"中国之制"看"中国之治"。边界污染问题一直是经济学研究的热点和难点,本文探讨了中国情境下的中央环保督查制度对边界污染的微观治理效果及内在机制。研究发现:设立跨区域环保督查中心后,边界企业污染排放显著减少,说明中央环保督查制度对边界污染有显著的治理效果。作用机制检验证实:在财政压力大的地区以及企业为"税收大户"时,环保督查中心的作用效果更明显,说明中央环保督查制度在地区层面缓解了地方政府机会主义行为;边界企业通过资源循环利用、增加污染物处理等长效机制实现主动减排。本文的研究结果表明,实行自上而下的环境垂直监管有助于解决边界污染问题。本文为中央垂直管理体制治理边界外部性问题提供了直接的微观经验证据。
Institution of China demonstrates the governance of China. A key feature of the institution in China is the unique combination of vertical management and tiered local management. This is known as the Chinese-style decentralization model, combining fiscal decentralization and political concentration, which has been a crucial driving force for China’s economic miracle. However, while encouraging regional economic development, fiscal decentralization has also catalyzed a series of concerns, one of which is border pollution. During the process of polluting border areas, the local governments obtain all the economic benefits, but only bear part of the pollution costs. Specifically, with a localized environmental monitoring system and the lack of coordination mechanisms across regions, local governments’ rational choice is to promote economic development at the cost of environment. As a result, border pollution has become a prominent concern in China.Although the issue of border pollution has gained growing attention among academics, most existing studies only focus on macro data of the regional level. There is a lack of micro-analysis and in-depth discussion on the governance of border pollution. Firstly, prevention and abatement of industrial pollution is the top priority of environmental protection, as industrial pollution accounts for more than 70% of the total pollution in China(Chinese Environment Bulletin, 2016). Secondly, developing effective institutional arrangements that can reduce and even eliminate border pollution and achieving coordinated environmental governance are important issues of the environmental policy in China. Thus, it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to discuss the governance of border pollution from the micro level.The pilot project of Environmental Protection Supervision Center(EPSC) launched in 2002 provides a unique setting for the study of border pollution governance. As the first cross-region agency established by the State Environmental Protection Administration, the EPSC aims to strengthen the environmental monitoring and governance across provincial boundaries in east and south China. In addition, the Chinese Environmental Statistics(CES) dataset covers the majority of polluting industrial factories, which contributes approximately 85% of China’s total major pollutants. The CES dataset provides a unique micro level data for our research. Based on this institutional context, our paper examines the effects and mechanisms of vertical management on the abatement of border pollution from a micro perspective. Firstly, this paper confirms that border enterprises emit more pollutants than non-border ones, indicating that excessive pollution by border enterprises is one of the causes of border pollution. Secondly, we find that pollution by border enterprises in pilot regions has decreased since the launch of the EPSC, which proves the effectiveness of the EPSC in border pollution governance. Thirdly, we prove that the effect of the EPSC is more pronounced in areas with high financial pressure and for border enterprises who are major taxpayers. This indicates that the implementation of the EPSC has restrained local governments’ opportunistic behavior in the border area which is promoting economic development while neglecting environmental consequences. In addition, by examining the governance mechanism of the EPSC from a micro perspective, we discover that border enterprises achieve emission reduction through long-term activities of cleaner production, such as resource recycling and pollutant treatment. To sum up, we reveal the governance mechanism of EPSC from both macro and micro perspectives. Our results are robust after a battery of sensitivity checks, including parallel trend test, placebo test, propensity score matching method, and alternative measures of pollution intensity. There are three main contributions of this paper. Firstly, this paper provides new insight into resolving border effects and externalities from the perspective of supervising vertical governance in the context of the Chinese institutions. Secondly, this paper reveals the positive effect and the mechanisms of the central environmental supervision and inspection system on the pollution abatement of micro-economic entities. Finally, focusing on industrial enterprises as the largest polluters, this paper provides evidence of the existence of border pollution and the effectiveness of the central environmental supervision system in border pollution governance.
作者
赵阳
沈洪涛
刘乾
ZHAO Yang;SHEN Hongtao;LIU Qian(Management School,Jinan University;Audencia Business School,Shenzhen University;Research Institute of International Service Economy,Guangdong University of Foreign Studies)
出处
《经济研究》
CSSCI
北大核心
2021年第7期113-126,共14页
Economic Research Journal
基金
国家自然科学基金面上项目(71672075)
中国博士后科学基金(2021M692167)
广州区域低碳经济研究基地的资助。
关键词
环保督查中心
分权
边界污染治理
企业清洁生产
垂直管理
Environmental Protection Supervision Center
Decentralization
Border Pollution Governance
Cleaner Production
Vertical Management
