| Since the reform and opening up in 1978,China’s economy has been rising rapidly,and has made remarkable achievements.High speed economic development has also brought many serious environmental problems,which have been affecting China’s sustained economic growth and social harmony,and even threating people’s living environment and health.Environmental pollution is affected by a number of factors,and the environment has attributes of public goods,so we cannot do any more without the support of fiscal policy.Based on the fact that the institutional arrangement provides a strong incentive for the rapid growth of the economy,we attempts to study the mechanism which will explain how China’s financial system exert it’s influence on environmental pollution and provide some theoretical reference for more effective environment policy in this paper.The study is carried out according to ‘literature review-mechanism analysis-status investigation-empirical analysis-policy recommendations’.First of all,the research literatures on the relationship between fiscal decentralization and environmental pollution are summarized,sorted out and expanded.Based on comprehensive review of relevant literature on fiscal decentralization and environmental pollution both across the domestic and abroad,the mechanism of fiscal decentralization affecting environmental pollution is analyzed,revealing the path of fiscal decentralization affecting environmental pollution.Then,the current situation of environmental pollution and the fiscal decentralization were analysed in China,and builds the environmental pollution comprehensive index by vertical and horizontal methods to measure the environmental pollution in all regions.At the provincial level,the environmental situation in Guangxi and Sichuan Province has been significantly improved from 2003 to 2015.The environmental pollution in Inner Mongolia,Liaoning,Shandong and Xinjiang is aggravating.The environmental quality in other provinces and municipalities fluctuates relatively less.From the average point of view,the environmental pollution in Hebei,Shanxi,Inner Mongolia,Liaoning,Jiangsu,Shandong and Henan provinces is serious,and the environmental quality in Hainan and Tibet is the best among all the provinces.At the prefecture level,environmental pollution is generally consistent with the provincial level,but pollution levels among prefecture-level cities within the same province also vary greatly.In terms of the financial system,the fiscal system in our country is relatively unified in the degree of fiscal decentralization among provinces(cities).There are some discrepancies in the degree of fiscal decentralization measured by expenditure and income.On the basis of the above analysis,empirical analyses of impact of fiscal decentralization on environmental pollution are carried out:Firstly,in the study of fiscal decentralization affecting the environmental pollution by local government competition,this paper analyzes the effects of fiscal decentralization and local government competition on environmental pollution from three aspects: heterogeneity,dynamic effect and endogenous interaction.Based on China’s panel data of cities at prefecture level and above from 2003 to 2015,the panel quantile model,dynamic panel and panel simultaneous equations are applied to analyze the effects of fiscal decentralization and local government competition on environmental pollution.The empirical results show that environmental pollution in our country has time inertia and positive spatial spillover characteristics,and significant environmental pollution local club phenomenon.Besides,there exists significant race to bottom phenomenon between local governments in environment pollution under the system of fiscal decentralization.Foreign direct investment will aggravate environmental pollution,but at the same time,environmental pollution,in turn,will inhibit the foreign direct investment to a certain extent.Secondly,in the research on the influence of fiscal decentralization on environmental pollution through industrial restructuring,we analyze the relationship between fiscal decentralization,industrial structure rationalization,industrial structure advancement and environmental pollution by using single-factor and multi-factor PSTR models.Based on Chinese provincial panel data from 2003 to 2015,we analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization and industrial structure on environmental pollution using PSTR model.Both in the single-factor PSTR model and multi-factor PSTR model,although fiscal decentralization has different effects on different pollutants,fiscal decentralization has a positive effect on various pollutant emissions.Taking the influence of the linear part and non-linear part into consideration,the key point to promote the development of green economy in our country is to formulate a gradual industrial policy to promote the industrial structure rationalization and industrial structure advancement.At the same time,governments should formulate environmental regulation policies suitable for local development according to the actual situation of industrial structure in various regions reasonably.Thirdly,in the study of fiscal decentralization affecting environmental pollution through pollution control expenditure,we analyze the effects of fiscal decentralization and pollution control expenditure on environmental pollution from two aspects: spatial correlation and spatial heterogeneity.The global and local Moran’s indexes have showed a comprehensive phenomenon that environmental pollution has a significant positive correlation in spatial distribution.At the same time,industrial wastewater emissions,industrial waste gas emissions and industrial solid waste emissions have significant characteristics of spatial agglomeration.In terms of spatial correlation,the spatial Dobbin model is used to calculate the impact of pollution control investment on the emission of various pollutants.This study shows that the indirect effects of the pollution control investment to the industrial ‘three wastes’ comprehensive utilization and industrial waste water treatment as well as the industrial solid waste are not significant,while the indirect effect of industrial waste gas investment is significant,that is,the treatment of industrial waste gas has significant spillover effects.In terms of spatial heterogeneity,when using the per capita GDP as transition variable,the coefficient of environmental pollution control on industrial waste comprehensive utilization shows a trend that increases firstly and decreases nextly.The coefficients of industrial wastewater treatment and industrial solid waste investment are relatively stable.The coefficient of industrial waste gas investment shows a tendency of ‘stability–decrease–stability’.When using industrial structure rationalization as a transtion variable,the coefficient of investment in environmental pollution control to the output value of the industrial ‘three wastes’ shows a decreasing tread with the increasing of industrial structure rationalization when it is lower than 3.8.The coefficient of industrial wastewater treatment investment remains between 0.2 and 0.4.The coefficients of industrial waste gas emissions and industrial solid waste disposal investment show jumping change trend,which has showed jumping changes when the values of industrial structure rationalization are 1.1 and 1.6 respectively.Correspondingly,when taking industrial structure advancement as the transition variable,the coefficient of environmental pollution control investment shows an inverted-U curve that first increases and then decreases when the industrial structure advancement level is between 2.2 and 4.0.The coefficient of industrial wastewater treatment investment is stable when the level of industrial structure advancement is below 6.5,showing a slowly downward trend when industrial structure advancement level is higher than 6.5.The coefficients of industrial waste gas treatment and industrial solid waste treatment are relatively stable.Finally,based on the above theoretical analysis and empirical test results,we put forward some policy suggestions correspondingly,such as building an integrated dynamic evaluation mechanism that includes the environment situation,clarifying the responsibility of governments at all levels in environmental governance,increasing the access standards for foreign direct investment,optimizing industrial structure both from industrial structure rationalization and industrial structure advancement,and so on. |
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