| The development of China’s economy is carried out in a combination of government intervention and market regulation.The behavior of the government has a great relationship with economic growth and social development.The most important behavior of the government is fiscal taxation.To this end,this paper links the local financial autonomy with the environmental issues of greatest concern to today’s society,taking the financial status data from the reports of 230 prefecture-level cities in China as a sample.The impact of fiscal autonomy on water pollution and air pollution was analyzed to examine the impact of fiscal autonomy on environmental pollution.At the same time,it puts forward the speculation that fiscal autonomy affects environmental pollution through environmental expenditure,and elaborates two hypotheses of this paper:(1)The enhancement of fiscal autonomy is conducive to the improvement of environmental quality in the region,mainly by increasing the local government environment.expenditure.(2)Local governments,under the encouragement of “only GDP”,will weaken the role of fiscal autonomy in promoting environmental improvement.Through the empirical test of the above hypothesis,this paper finds that:(1)Local financial autonomy,with environmental expenditure as the medium,has an opposite effect on environmental pollution,whether it is consistent in air pollution or water pollution.That is,when local governments have higher financial autonomy,local governments will increase local environmental expenditures,and the degree of environmental pollution will be improved.On the contrary,if local governments have less fiscal autonomy,local governments will reduce local environmental expenditures.The environmental pollution problem has further deteriorated.In areas with greater financial autonomy,the local government is more motivated to actively increase environmental expenditures,thereby providing financial support for environmental pollution control and improving environmental pollution.(2)Although the expansion of fiscal autonomy will improve environmental pollution by increasing environmental expenditures,local government officials have expanded their industrial fixed investment due to the pursuit of local government performance,thus weakening the effect of fiscal autonomy on environmental pollution.(3)Judging from the results of time heterogeneity analysis,after the change in the performance appraisal method in 2009 and the environmental protection were included in the performance evaluation,the role of local government fiscal autonomy in improving pollution has been strengthened.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,the financial autonomy of eastern China and large cities has a significantly better effect on environmental pollution than the central and western regions and small and medium-sized cities.(4)The local innovation capacity and human capital level will also have an impact on environmental pollution.In areas with high innovation capability and high human capital,the environmental pollution situation will be significantly better than the “two low” regions.Finally,based on the above research conclusions,this paper proposes five policy recommendations,including(1)improving the financial autonomy of regional governments;(2)increasing the supply of public goods as environmental expenditures;(3)the government needs to strengthen environmental regulations and cut Do not consider immediate interests;(4)change the mode of economic growth,reduce industrial fixed investment for the purpose of increasing political achievements;(5)improve the ability of innovation and human capital.This research can provide new ideas for our efforts to improve environmental pollution,that is,to achieve the goal of green development by improving local financial autonomy. |
