Research On The Impact Of Fiscal Environmental Protection Expenditure Policy On Green Technology Innovation In China

Effectively balancing "stable growth" and "optimizing the environment" has always been an important goal of national development.The 20 th National Congress report clearly states,"accelerating the green transformation of the development mode".In this development process,unlike traditional technology innovation,green technology innovation is the core driving force and critical support for realizing "harmonious coexistence" between the economy and the environment;the economic society urgently needs to rely on green technology innovation to solve the sustainable development dilemma.However,due to the existence of double externalities characteristics,green technology innovation research and development incentives are insufficient and difficult to realize solely by market forces.In the face of this problem,the government has formulated multiple environmental and economic policies to intervene comprehensively.Finance is the foundation and essential pillar of national governance,in which fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy has the attributes of both regulating the environment and guiding the economy,directly reflecting the fiscal inputs for environmental governance,but the policy scale has greater space for enhancement.The sound fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy conveys the government’s determination of environmental governance,which is conducive to regulating market behaviors and guiding funds to green fields,which is significant for promoting green transformation development.In this context,the focus of this paper is identifying the impact of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy on green technology innovation.Based on theoretical perspectives,this paper expands the theoretical model of Acemoglu et al.(2012),incorporates fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy into the analytical framework,and stresses clarifying the mechanism of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy influencing regional green technology innovation.Based on empirical perspectives,this paper uses city-level data to carry out systematic econometric tests and analyses.On the basis of comprehensively judging the effect of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy on green technology innovation,this paper begins with multiple dimensions of the transmission mechanism,government decentralization,opening up,and policy combination dimensions,deeply analyzing the changing characteristics of policy effects.Firstly,from the perspective of local and neighboring regions,this paper comprehensively explores the effect of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy on green technology innovation.By constructing the panel fixed effects model and spatial econometric model,this paper comprehensively tests the impact of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy on green technology innovation in local and neighboring areas,then combines with the urban economic scale and human capital characteristics to carry out the heterogeneity analysis.The research shows that green technology innovation’s obvious positive spatial spillover phenomenon exists."Localneighborhood" green technology innovation effects of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy are inconsistent.For local green technology innovation,fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy shows the influence of promoting and then inhibiting;for neighboring green technology innovation,fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy displays the inhibiting and then promoting effects through spatial spillover.From the heterogeneity analysis,the fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy is more helpful in stimulating the vitality of local green technology innovation in regions with larger economic scales and greater sufficient human capital.Secondly,from the perspective of industrial structure and economic income,this paper investigates the transmission mechanism between fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy and green technology innovation.By constructing the mediation effect model and the panel threshold effect model,this paper tests whether the fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy functions through the transmission mechanism of industrial structure and economic income,incorporating heterogeneous cities discussion and exploring the nonlinear characteristics of transmission mechanisms.The research shows that regional industrial structure and economic income generate significant partial mediating effects in the process of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy influencing green technology innovation.Fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy could stimulate local green technology innovation by adjusting industrial structure or raising economic income.From the heterogeneity analysis,fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy significantly empowers green technology innovation in the midwest region,with both transmission mechanisms valid,while that in the east region is not valid.Further,industrial structure and economic income exert chain intermediary functions when the fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy promotes green technology innovation.In addition,the industrial structure transmission mechanism has nonlinear characteristics,while the economic income transmission mechanism does not have nonlinear features.Again,from the perspective of government decentralization,this paper verifies the nonlinear relationship between fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy and green technology innovation.By constructing the panel threshold model and the panel quantile model,this paper tests changes in the implementation effectiveness of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy under the threshold constraint of government decentralization,then investigates the differentiated effects of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy on different quantile points of green technology innovation based on various threshold intervals.The study shows that both fiscal decentralization and environmental decentralization show significant single-threshold effects in the process of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy affecting green technology innovation.With the degree of two types of decentralization increasing,the impact of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy on green technology innovation exhibits the characteristics of positive and marginal effects increasing.Since during the sample period,the number of cities with high decentralization gradually increased,the stronger green technology innovation promotion effect of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy could be shown in most cities.Moreover,under the different threshold conditions of the two decentralizations,with the green technology innovation quartile point rising,the promotion effect of policy displays "inverted U-type" dynamic characteristics,with the policy effect under the high decentralization threshold being more substantial than that under the low-threshold scenario overall.Then,from the perspective of opening up,this paper analyses the external role of different openness on the relationship between fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy and green technology innovation.By constructing the panel moderated effects model and instrumental variables regression model,this paper tests the critical roles performed by two contextual factors,namely,capital-introducing openness and trade openness,in the process of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy affecting green technology innovation,with heterogeneity analyses based on the city location and hierarchical features.The study shows that capital-introducing openness positively moderates the impact of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy on green technology innovation.Meanwhile,trade openness also has positive moderating effects,but the effect strength is weaker than that of capital-introducing openness.From the heterogeneity analysis,in cities of the northwest area of "Hu Huanyong Line",the positive regulation of capitalintroducing openness and trade openness on the fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy’s effect is relatively stronger.In addition,compared with provincial cities,the two types of openness have a stronger positive moderating effect on the relationship between fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy and green technology innovation in non-provincial cities.Finally,from the perspective of policy combination,this paper discusses the impact of the fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy and carbon trading policy superimposed on green technology innovation.By constructing the difference-in-difference model,propensity score matching difference-in-difference model,and mediation effect model,this paper tests the effects of simultaneously implementing fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy and carbon trading policy on green technology innovation while analyzing the difference in policy combination effects between coastal and inland areas,further verifying the transmission mechanism of policy synergistic affecting green technology innovation.The study shows that when the fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy and carbon trading policy are simultaneously included in the overall framework,both policies can promote green technology innovation,and the carbon trading policy does not lead to the failure of the fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy.From the heterogeneity analysis,both fiscal environmental expenditure policy and carbon trading policy stimulate green technology innovation in inland areas,while that in coastal areas is not significant.In addition,regional economic incomes generate partial mediating effects in the process of policies synergizing to promote green technology innovation.From the overall perspective,this paper effectively combines theoretical analyses and empirical tests,systematically revealing the deep inner logic of fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy affecting green technology innovation.Accordingly,this paper not only broadens the boundaries of existing theoretical and empirical research but also provides new ideas for effectively implementing fiscal environmental protection expenditure policy at this stage and promoting regional green economic development.To be specific,local governments should prudently implement fiscal environmental protection expenditure policies and strengthen dynamic policy regulation;effectively control the incentive role of policies on industrial structure and economic income;correctly deal with the benign interaction between government decentralization and policies;reasonably promote the positive regulatory effect of opening up on policy effects;and fully utilize the facilitating efficacy of policy combinations in green technology innovation,improving regional green technology innovation level continuously.