Research On The Incentive Effect Of Environmental Tax Policy On Green Investment In The Context Of "Double Carbon"

As an important institutional arrangement to coordinate the two objective functions of environmental protection and economic development,the economic effect caused by environmental tax and fee policies has always been a hot topic in the academic circle.However,due to the restriction and influence of specific economic background,existing researches mainly focus on the analysis of the regulatory and disciplinary attributes of environmental tax and fee policies,but lack sufficient attention to their potential economic incentives,resulting in large disputes and disagreements in the adjustment of current public policies.Our country is in the crucial stage of exploring high-quality economic development,and it is increasingly inclined to encourage institutional structure system.However,more and more evidence shows that environmental tax and fees policies play an active role in regulating enterprise investment preference and encouraging enterprises to develop green investment.Especially,under the influence of the strategic goal of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality",The economic incentive characteristic of environmental tax policy is more obvious.This means that the environmental tax policy must play an important supporting role in the process of economic growth pattern transformation and reform in the future.Therefore,from the perspective of corporate green investment behavior,it is of great significance to explore the economic incentives of environmental tax and fee policies in the new era,analyze and summarize the deep mechanism and underlying logic affecting corporate investment preference,and optimize and improve relevant policies in the future.Taking "corporate green investment behavior" as the entry point,this paper includes the tax and fee policies currently implemented in China into the same research framework,describes the micro-mechanism of economic incentives generated by environmental tax and fee policies from multiple perspectives such as cost,risk and liquidity,and demonstrates and summarizes the objective value law of environmental tax and fee policies’ effect on corporate green investment behavior.The application scenarios of system economy theory and tax regulation theory are expanded.On this basis,this paper comprehensively uses mathematical model,dynamic effect model,threshold effect model,quantile model,propensity score matching and other tools to evaluate and measure the general law of the incentive effect of environmental tax and fee policies on green investment,and summarizes its marginal characteristics,dynamic effect and heterogeneity.An index system was constructed to simulate the "double carbon" pressure by using envelope analysis and other methods,and the evolutionary characteristics of the green investment incentive effect of environmental tax and fee policies were analyzed when considering the superposition of "double carbon".Based on the relevant theories of institutional economics,the regulatory effects of institutional environmental factors on the economic incentives of environmental tax and fee policies were also analyzed.This paper analyzes the policy mechanism of market incentive environmental regulation tools from the underlying logic,further evaluates the extended economic value of the green investment incentive effect of environmental tax policy,and puts forward the idea of optimizing environmental tax policy from a more macro perspective.The research conclusions mainly include the following aspects:(1)There is a significant and positive causal relationship between environmental tax policy and enterprises’ green investment behavior.In this paper,we set up a function of corporate profit in the competitive market,and introduced environmental tax and fee,an important exogenous constraint mechanism,to analyze and discuss the underlying economic mechanism of environmental tax and fee policy on corporate green investment behavior.According to the theoretical analysis based on mathematical model,the environmental tax policy internalizes the originally exogenous environmental cost,changes the profit composition and utility function of enterprises,transmits the transformation pressure to enterprises through multiple mechanisms,and encourages enterprises to actively neutralize the negative externality output by carrying out green investment.The empirical data based on energy-intensive industries also support the above view.It is believed that environmental taxes and fees have a significant incentive effect on enterprises’ green investment behavior,and the two are highly correlated.This conclusion is still valid after changing the estimation method,using different control variables and optimizing the statistical calibre.Further,after the introduction of "double carbon" index to simulate external policy pressure,it is found that external national strategies will have a superimposed impact on the economic incentives of environmental tax and fee policies,forming a significant synergistic effect at the micro level.(2)The effect of environmental tax and fee policies on enterprises’ green investment behavior is not static,but will show significant "dynamic efficiency" in the time line.Based on an expected profit function including discount rate,this paper finds that the economic incentive of environmental tax policy is not only reflected in the current period,but will still have a significant impact in the future.The reason is that environmental tax and fee policies are stable within a certain period of time,which is equivalent to imposing a long-term constraint mechanism,forming a typical "sticky cost",and transmitting a risk signal of future regulatory policy changes.This point is also verified by the analysis results based on the dynamic effect model.It is found that within the sample interval,the economic incentive of environmental tax and fee policies presents a significant dynamic strengthening trend,and this dynamic characteristic is more obvious when the pressure of "double carbon" is added.The research conclusion verifies the "dynamic efficiency" of environmental tax and fee policies at both theoretical and empirical levels.(3)The causal relationship between environmental tax policy and corporate green investment behavior is not linear,but will show heterogeneity with the change of levy intensity.Based on the measurement results of threshold effect model and quantile model,it is concluded that the general characteristics of environmental tax policy’s effect on enterprises’ green investment behavior show a nonlinear trend,and enterprises’ green investment will increase first and then decrease with the increase of levy intensity.It is believed that excessively high environmental tax burden will squeeze the profit space of enterprises,distort the normal production,operation and investment behavior of enterprises,and lead to the so-called "growth trap" of the economy.However,excessively low tax burden can hardly play the role of cost transmission,which is not enough to stimulate the enthusiasm of enterprises to correct pollution behavior through green investment.Therefore,a reasonable environmental tax burden level is an important guarantee to give play to the economic incentive of environmental tax policy.In addition,based on the analysis results of the "counterfactual" framework,the environmental "tax" and "fee" policies have slightly different incentive effects on green investment.Due to the more rigid law enforcement form of the tax system and the existence of gradient tax rate design,the environmental tax system shows a more significant incentive effect on green investment.(4)"cost transmission" is the main incentive economic mechanism of environmental tax policy.Environmental tax policy has the dual attributes of taxation and environmental control,so different from other tax systems,environmental tax policy realizes its corrective effect by transferring the "pollution cost".It is found that when the cost pressure is gradually transmitted to the level of investment decisionmaking,it will significantly affect the investment preference of enterprises,strengthen their motivation to carry out green investment and negative externalities,and form significant economic incentives to encourage enterprises to make improvements in accordance with cost constraints.Moreover,the cost transmission mechanism of environmental tax and fee policies is not single.In the real business environment,this cost transmission mechanism can be further divided into "direct cost effect","indirect cost effect" and "practice cost effect".The three cost mechanisms affect the investment behavior of enterprises from different levels respectively.And will be significantly enhanced by the addition of " double carbon " targets.(5)"Risk transmission" and "liquidity constraint" are important economic mechanisms for environmental tax and fee policies to exert incentives.Based on the "comprehensive leverage coefficient" and "beta coefficient" of listed companies,the intermediary utility of the "risk transmission mechanism" is tested.The study found that the levy of environmental tax policy released risk signals of future policy changes to investors,revealing the situation that enterprises have low resource utilization efficiency and potential technological improvement in their production and operation,and also conveyed the government’s determination to eliminate "high pollution and high energy consumption" industries.So that enterprises feel more obvious environmental risks and the uncertainty of future sustainable operations,and make corresponding changes at the investment decision-making level,and invest more funds in the field of "green investment" to neutralize future business risks.In addition,this paper finds that,as an exogenous tax burden mechanism,the levy of environmental tax policy will inevitably have an impact on the "liquidity" of enterprises.However,unlike other tax instruments,the root cause of the "liquidity constraint" effect of environmental tax policy lies in the external uneconomic behaviors in the production process of enterprises,so it can be neutralized and offset through green investment in subsequent links.So it has a corrective effect rather than a punitive effect.(6)Improving the market system has a positive regulating effect on releasing the incentive of environmental tax and fee policy.As an environmental policy designed on the basis of market mechanism,the economic incentives of environmental tax and fee policy need to rely on the construction of a perfect market system.Based on the relevant indicator system such as the Marketization Index of China by Provinces,it is found through the adjustment effect model that improving the market mechanism will bring systematic optimization effects at multiple levels.So that the policy mechanism of environmental tax and fee system can be more effective.Moreover,the regulatory effect of the market system is not single linear,and it will have a differentiated impact on the legal system,factor market,product market and other levels.Among them,the improvement of "legal environment" is conducive to the fairness of the implementation process of environmental tax and fee policies,and can effectively avoid the occurrence of "selective law enforcement" and "endogenous law enforcement".The development of factor market and product market has brought about a perfect property rights mechanism and price mechanism,which is conducive to the pricing and transaction of environmental factors.It provides the relevant institutional basis for environmental tax and fee to exert its economic incentive.In addition,it is also found that further releasing the economic incentives of environmental tax and fee policies needs to start from the perspective of the soft environment of the whole system.(7)The green investment effect brought by environmental tax and fee policies is of great significance to social sustainable development.The extended analysis shows that,first of all,the green investment incentive effect of environmental tax policy can provide financial support for enterprises to purchase green technology and equipment,and technical equipment can optimize the production process of enterprises,and then reduce the external output of enterprises.Secondly,the economic incentive of environmental tax policy does not impact the normal production and operation of enterprises,but helps enterprises to improve economic efficiency and promote the improvement of total factor productivity.Finally,the economic incentive of environmental tax policy provides financial support for the independent research and development of green technology by enterprises,forming a typical "green technology transformation effect" at the level of innovation.Moreover,the above three extended economic effects are still valid in the "double carbon" scenario,which indicates that the current environmental tax and fees policy is effective and has the role of coordinating the two objective functions of economic development and environmental protection,and also proves that the conclusion of this paper is logically consistent with the existing research.