Research On The Impact Of The Government’s Environmental Goals On The Transformation And Upgrading Of Enterprises

At present,China is speeding up the establishment of a green GDP oriented performance appraisal system,and a new pattern of modernization is gradually taking shape,in which the performance appraisal can renew the development idea.With the increasing emphasis on the responsibility system of environmental protection objectives in China,the government’s environmental goals have gradually attracted the attention of local governments.The report to the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward that ‘respecting,conforming to and protecting nature are the inherent requirements of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way.We must firmly establish and practice the concept that clear waters and green mountains are as good as mountains of gold and silver.’ As a method of economic transformation with typical Chinese characteristics,the government’s environmental goals are also the main key to implement the ‘green’ development concept,which will inevitably have a profound impact on the China’s economic development in the future.In particular,during the "Fourteenth Five Year Plan" period,the central government required to further improve the management of restrictive indicators for environmental protection,energy conservation and emission reduction,which means that the importance of environmental goal constraints will continue to increase in the future.Based on this realistic background,this paper conducts an in-depth study on the impact of local government environmental goal constraints on on the transformation and upgrading of enterprises so as to provide corresponding policy inspiration for reviewing and evaluating the implementation effect of environmental goal constraints,and optimizing the implementation mode of local government environmental goals.The main research contents of this paper are as follows:First,this paper defines and explains the concept of environmental goal constraint of local government,so as to clarify the difference between it and the environmental regulation policy.Then this paper summarizes and refines the innovations and marginal contributions of this study,mainly reflected in the research perspective and empirical methods,by summarizing the classical economic theoretical basis and relevant literature.In addition,this paper deeply discusses the origin and formation process of the environmental goal constraint of local governments,and analyzes the evolution trend,regional heterogeneity and the changes of the constraint content of the government’s environmental goals in China from 2000 to 2019.Second,different from simply examining the relationship between government’s environmental goals and green innovation,this paper examines whether this environmental institutional arrangement can bring green technology to catch up with non-green technology on the enterprise level.Based on the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen and the Chinese patent database,this paper uses a Time-varying DID model to examine the impact of environmental goal constraint on the green innovation activities of enterprises.The results show that environmental goal constraint has a significant role in promoting green technology innovation of enterprises,and can effectively promote enterprises’ green technology to catch up with non-green technology,and ultimately help enterprises achieve green transformation and upgrading.The mechanism is that the government provides subsidies for green technology innovation,levies environmental taxes,and increases environmental punishment to enterprises in order to achieve the established emission reduction goals,and ultimately encourages and forces enterprises to carry out green technology research and development.Third,different from the traditional researches on the effect of specific environmental regulation policies on emission reduction,this paper examines the issue of enterprise’s pollution emissions from the perspective of government’s environmental goals.Based on the matching data of China’s industrial enterprise database and China’s industrial enterprise’s pollution database,this paper uses a Time-varying DID model to examine the impact of environmental goal constraints on enterprise’s pollution emissions.The results show that local governments can significantly promote pollution reduction of local enterprises by formulating environmental goal constraints.The mechanism is that the local government will promote the local enterprises to optimize the energy utilization structure and strengthen the terminal pollution control ability in order to achieve the environmental goals,and help enterprises to alleviate financing constraints so as to finally achieve the goal of pollution reduction.Fourth,different from the current general research perspective on government’s environmental goals,this paper takes export product quality as the research object,and uses the heterogeneity-robust estimator to investigate the impact of government’s environmental goals on the quality of enterprises’ export products based on the matching data of China’s industrial enterprise database and custom database.The results show that the local government’s environmental goals can significantly promote the quality of export products.The mechanism is that under the pressure of environmental goal constraints,local governments will stimulate enterprises’ innovation activities,promote enterprises to optimize their product structure,and reduce the tax burden of enterprises so as to play a positive role in the quality of export products.Fifthly,different from the literature that studies the impact of local governments’ economic goals or environmental goals separately,this paper conducts an analysis from the perspective of their interaction.Based on the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen,this paper uses the IV method to investigate the impact of local governments’ dual goal constraints on the total factor productivity of enterprises.The results show that the superposition of local government’s environmental goals and economic goals will damage the total factor productivity level of local enterprises.The main reason is that it reduces the capital allocation efficiency and innovation level of local enterprises,but we also find that this negative impact will not persist for a long time.The above conclusions have important policy implications for optimizing our government’s environmental governance system and enterprise behavior.Therefore,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations: First,continue to strengthen environmental performance assessment,and at the same time,pay attention to improving the government’s environmental governance attitude,and reduce local officials’ speculation through a long-term responsibility mechanism;Second,optimize the intervention means of environmental governance,improve the effectiveness of environmental goal constraints,and select progressively environmental goals according to local conditions to provide a relatively stable policy environment for enterprises;Third,strengthen the construction of the local government’s governing capacity,especially the construction of the government’s multi-objective governance capacity,to avoid damaging the effect of the government’s multi-objective governance system due to decision-making mistakes;Fourth,for enterprises,they should focus on the sustainable development,and actively seek cooperation with the government for transformation and upgrading.