Environmental Decentralization,local Competition And Green Total Factor Productivity

With the rapid development of our country's economy,our country's international status has risen rapidly,but our country's rapid development is brought about by extensive growth.However,our country's rapid development is brought about by extensive growth.The biggest problem with this growth model that ignores pollution emissions and environmental protection is that it has caused my country's low resource efficiency and severe environmental damage.Therefore,how to balance environmental pollution and economic development is a new challenge for us.The government has also noticed the deterioration of the environment when improving regional development,and has introduced a series of policies and measures to carry out environmental management.Regarding the question of whether environmental management is centralized or decentralized,my country prefers environmental decentralization,that is,the local government assumes responsibility for the local environment.Management and environmental governance affairs,using local advantages to improve environmental governance efficiency.However,local governments are prone to performance competition for the sake of regional development and local officials for their own promotion,which results in the neglect of environmental governance and affects the improvement of green total factor productivity.The green total factor productivity(TFP)includes the neglected environmental issues,and the new environmental standard is incorporated into the measurement of TFP,which becomes an important indicator to measure the degree of coordination between a local ecological environment and economic development.Therefore,this paper uses green total factor productivity to measure the level of green development of the region,and studies the impact of environmental decentralization and local competition on green total factor productivity.This article first analyzes the background of the environmental decentralization system and the changes in green total factor productivity,and analyzes the regional differences in the level of environmental decentralization and green total factor productivity in our country,Secondly,through the empirical analysis of the relationship between environmental decentralization and green total factor productivity through a fixed effect model,and incorporating local competition into the model,it tests the impact of the interaction of environmental decentralization and local competition on green total factor productivity and explores the path of environmental decentralization on green total factor productivity,Finally,it is verified whether environmental decentralization has a threshold effect on green total factor productivity.Through the above analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:First,our country's environmental decentralization system has experienced three stages: environmental management decentralization—centralization under the decentralization framework—intensification of central control under the decentralization system.From 2003 to 2016,the number of staff members of national and prefectural environmental protection agencies showed an increasing trend.Compared with the level of environmental decentralization in the eastern,central and western regions of the country,due to the advantages of economic level and management experience in the east,the level of environmental decentralization is also higher,and the level of environmental decentralization in the central region is lower.Second,our country's green total factor productivity has developed well in general,but has shown a downward trend in the sample interval.Moreover,the level of green total factor productivity varies from region to region.There are differences in the mean value of the green total factor productivity index in eastern,central and western regions of our country.Compared with eastern,central and western regions,the western region has the highest level of green total factor productivity,followed by eastern region,the central region is the lowestThird,based on panel data from 2003 to 2016,it is found that environmental decentralization has a positive promoting effect on green total factor productivity.Adding the data of 2017-2018,it is found that the relationship between environmental decentralization and green total factor productivity is not necessarily linear.According to the analysis of threshold effect,it is found that the relationship between environmental decentralization and green total factor productivity is inverted U-shaped.In other words,when environmental decentralization is at a low level,environmental decentralization has a positive impact on green total factor productivity;when the level of environmental decentralization is above the inflection point,environmental decentralization has a negative effect on green total factor productivity.Fourth,it is found that local government competition hinders green total factor productivity,and even reduces the promotion effect brought by environmental decentralization.Fifth,The synergistic effect of environmental decentralization and local competition is not conducive to green total factor productivity,and the ‘race to the bottom' approach of local governments has reduced green total factor productivity,but its negative effect is smaller than the negative effect of local competition on green total factor productivity,the negative effect of total factor productivity as a result,the level of environmental decentralization can reduce the negative effects of local competition on green total factor productivity.From the perspective of sub-samples,local competition has also inhibited the improvement of environmental decentralization on the level of green development.The positive effect of environmental decentralization in the east on green total factor productivity is stronger than that in the central and western regions.The interaction between environmental decentralization and local competition has an impact on provincial capitals.The negative effect of urban green total factor productivity is smaller than that of prefecture-level citiesBased on the above research results,this article finally puts forward three suggestions on how to exert the positive impact of environmental decentralization,how to appropriately compete locally,and promote the development of green total factor productivity:.promote structural reforms of the environmental management system,improve environmental protection guarantees and incentive mechanisms,and formulate environmental protection policies based on local differences.