Research On Environmental Effects Of Industrial Policy

According to the 14th Five-Year Plan and the outl ine of the vision for 2035,China should "accelerate the green transformation of its development model,promote highquality economic development and high-level ecological and environmental protection",and achieve the binding targets of reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 13.5 percent and 18 percent respectively.The "Two Mountains Theory" vividly compares the relationship between protecting the ecological environment and developing productive forces to the relationship between clear waters and green mountains,gold and silver mountains.It has become the consensus and action of the whole society to actively explore the high-quality development that environmental protection and economic growth complement each other.Therefore,how to find a new path of win-win economic development and environmental protection is a major realistic problem facing China in the transitional period.Industrial policy plays an important role in promoting China’s industrialization process,enhancing industrial competitiveness and promoting economic growth.It is also an important driving force for improving modern industrial system and realizing the leapfrog development of modern economic system in the new development stage.In the existing academic research and policy practice,the economic effect of industrial policy has been paid much attention,but its environmental effect has been paid little attention.Under the background of green development,considering environmental benefits is the inherent requirement of high-quality industrial development.It is urgent to analyze whether industrial policy has the effect of improving the environment and the path mechanism of policy action.Using the Database of Chinese Industrial Enterprises from 1998 to 2007 and the Database of Chinese Enterprises’ pollution,this paper systematically evaluates the environmental effects of industrial policies from the micro level for the first time,and focuses on how industrial policies can be implemented more effectively.At the theoretical level,this paper attempts to study the environmental effects of industrial policies by constructing an analytical framework of "efficient market" and "effective government".First of all,based on the classic paradigm of "three effects of environment",this paper puts forward the basic conclusion that industrial policy can improve enterprise environmental performance,and analyzes the action channels of industrial policy from the perspective of scale effect,innovation effect and structural effect,which complements the theoretical explanation that macroeconomic policy affects micro enterprise environmental performance.Secondly,it analyzes that the relationship between government and market is not simply either-or,and industrial policy and competitive open market mechanism can play their synergistic and complementary effects.Thirdly,starting from the institutional background of China’s industrial policy implementation,this paper describes the logic of behavior change between central government and local government in the process of industrial policy formulation and implementation,and emphasizes the dynamic relationship between institutional supply and policy supply from the perspective of national governance that affects the effectiveness of policy.At the empirical level,this paper takes government subsidies and tax incentives as the main research objects,constructs relative exogenous policy variables,and tests the policy effects and influencing mechanism of industrial policies.Study found that industrial policy is beneficial to reduce the pollution emissions intensity,this conclusion through instrumental variable method,Heckman two-stage regression method,transform the core explanation.and be explained variables such as robustness remains valid after inspection,industrial policy through the scale effect mechanism,the innovation effect mechanism and the structure effect mechanism to improve the enterprise environmental performance.Further research shows that government subsidies and tax incentives are more conducive to reducing the pollution intensity of private enterprises,small and medium-sized enterprises and non-export enterprises.Industrial policies ease the financing constraints of enterprises,and have greater emission reduction effect on enterprises with strong financing constraints,while strengthening the environmental performance of enterprises with strong innovation ability.Industrial policy also depends on the effectiveness of its market environment,market competition and industry policy,the opening to the outside world and the industry policy has significant coordination complementary effect,along with the market competition,to strengthen the government subsidies to foreign investment,domestic enterprises pollution emissions intensity of negative effect,that competition in the market to improve the efficiency of government subsidy policy;Market competition also strengthens the environmental performance of tax incentives on local enterprises,especially private enterprises.Opening to the outside world is conducive to the emission reduction effect of industrial policies on local enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises.Chinese-style "political centralization and economic decentralization"governance pattern is the most important institutional background understanding of industrial policy,industrial policy can reduce the pollution emissions intensity,confirmed that the hand of government support is necessary,but may exist in the process of industrial policy implementation inconsistent policy goals,the longitudinal damping,conditionality factors such as information asymmetry.Reasonable performance assessment has a positive incentive effect on local government subsidies and tax preferential policies,which is conducive to industrial policies to reduce pollution emission intensity of enterprises.The combination of local environmental governance and industrial policy can promote the emission reduction effect of enterprises more effectively,government environmental governance can give full play to the effect of market sewage charge price mechanism and public supervision effect of environmental governance,and environmental technology investment strengthens the environmental effect of industrial policy.This paper theoretically expands the interactive framework between macro industrial policy and micro enterprise behavior,complements the dynamic complementary relationship between government and market,and also provides a theoretical basis for the green transformation of China’s industrial policy in the new development stage.The practical significance of this paper lies in providing empirical evidence of the environmental protection effect of China’s industrial policy,which not only provides reference for China to formulate and improve its industrial policy,but also provides important experience for other countries,especially developing countries,to balance economic development and environmental protection.This study has profound policy implications.First,further define the development objectives of industrial policy and improve the selection and application of policy tools.Second,according to the development status of enterprises of different ownership,identify the focal points of industrial policy,give full play to the leading role of industrial policy in green economy,and improve the quality of industry.Third,integrate the advantages of the market and the government,improve the institutional construction of policy formulation and implementation,and improve policy efficiency.