A Study On The Effect Of Environmental Tax On The Performance Of Heavy Polluters Under The Role Of Technological Innovation

Rapid economic development and the accompanying environmental problems have intensified.In order to improve the ecological environment,optimize the ecological governance system and promote high-quality development,China promulgated the Environmental Protection Tax Law in 2016 and implemented it from January 1,2018.However,both the environmental protection fee and the environmental protection tax will increase the production cost of enterprises and crowd out their R＆D and investment funds while solving the environmental pollution problem,but in the long run,innovation helps to reduce environmental pollution and promote sustainable economic development.What is the impact of environmental taxes and fees on the financial performance of companies? What is the role of innovation? Based on externality theory,Porter’s hypothesis and technological innovation theory,this paper investigates the impact of environmental taxes on firms’ financial performance and measures technological innovation in terms of both R＆D inputs and output of innovation results R＆D input and innovation output,and use the two as mediating variables to examine the role of environmental taxes and corporate financial performance.Variability.This paper selects the data of heavy polluters in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2010 to 2019 for research and analysis,and firstly establishes a panel two-way fixed effects model,and uses the regression coefficient method of the stepwise test of Zhonglin Wen to examine the impact of environmental protection tax on the financial performance of heavily polluting enterprises,and the mediating role played by firms’ innovation inputs and innovation outputs in the transmission between the two.The results of the study show that the imposition of environmental protection tax significantly contributes to the financial performance of heavy polluting enterprises,in which innovation input and innovation output play a significant mediating effect.Second,use another variable to represent the explained variable,replacing the use of Tobit model,and Bootstrap test.And further,analyze the variability of results between state-owned and private enterprises in the sample,and also the sample enterprises are grouped according to the East and West Regions regression to examine the impact of environmental protection tax on the performance of heavy polluting enterprises in different regions.The main findings are as follows.Firstly,overall,environmental taxes help to improve the financial performance of heavily polluting firms,and both corporate R＆D investment and innovation output play a significant role in their transmission.Secondly,there is heterogeneity in property rights and regional heterogeneity in the impact of environmental taxes on the financial performance of heavily polluting firms.This is demonstrated by the fact that the promotion effect of environmental taxes on the financial performance of state-owned heavy polluting firms is stronger than that of non-state-owned firms;Heavy polluters located in the eastern region have a stronger financial performance boost from the environmental tax than those in the central and western regions;and a stronger financial performance boost for heavy polluters located in national city clusters than in other regions.Therefore,it is necessary to gather forces to promote technological innovation of heavy polluting enterprises in central and western regions,and appropriately gather environmental protection tax and other preferential policies and human,some preferential policies should be introduced for the central and western regions to encourage the flow of capital and talents to the region;make differentiated policies for enterprises with different property rights nature to guide innovation;also improve the accuracy of environmental protection tax collection to guide enterprises to establish a green development concept;heavy polluting enterprises themselves should also actively treat Environmental protection tax policy,strict compliance,green production,but also seize the opportunity to shape technological first-mover advantage and promote enterprise performance improvement.