| Since the implementation of the water resource fee system,it has played a certain role in China’s water resource protection,but due to the limitations of its system,it has not received good expectations.Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,in order to further implement the principle of tax legality and improve China’s tax legal system,as well as to effectively protect water resources,China has begun to pilot the policy of replacing water resource fees with taxes in some regions.After the implementation of the policy of replacing water resource fees with taxes,the proportion of industrial water consumption in China’s total water consumption has been decreasing year by year.As the main water consuming industry in industrial water use,the manufacturing industry has been greatly impacted by the policy since the water resource fees were replaced with taxes.As an important policy measure to protect water resources and promote the rational use of water resources in China,whether it can promote enterprises to integrate green development concepts into production and operation,and achieve dual dividends of environment and economy,is a question worth exploring.Total factor productivity is a good indicator that reflects the degree of efficiency improvement in the "input-output" structure of enterprises.It can be used as a proxy indicator for improving water efficiency in enterprises to a large extent.Therefore,this article takes it as the dependent variable to study the impact of water resource fee tax reform on manufacturing enterprises,and evaluates the policy effect of water resource fee tax reform in China from a micro perspective.This article mainly reviews the evolution process of water resource fees and water resource tax systems,and points out the necessity of changing water resource fees to taxes,including the institutional drawbacks of water resource fees,the urgency of water resource protection,and the need to improve the tax legal system.At the same time,this article also summarizes the achievements of the current pilot policies,which are reflected in significant income growth,improved water resource utilization efficiency,further standardization of management,and enhanced motivation for water-saving transformation in enterprises.In the theoretical analysis and empirical part,this article selects the financial data of listed manufacturing enterprises in China from 2011 to 2020 as the basis for estimating total factor productivity.Taking the expansion of the water resource fee tax policy pilot as the time node,and using a double difference model,it is found that the implementation of the water resource fee tax policy can effectively promote the improvement of total factor productivity of manufacturing enterprises.In the mechanism path research section,this article empirically finds that the water resource fee tax reform can have a positive impact on the improvement of total factor productivity through two path mechanisms: enterprise technological innovation effect and resource allocation effect.Meanwhile,the heterogeneity group regression analysis in this article shows that for high water consumption industries,changing water resource fees to taxes can more significantly improve the total factor productivity of enterprises,and high water consumption production behavior will be significantly constrained due to policy implementation;In areas with high tax rates,the policy effect of replacing water resource fees with taxes is also more obvious.Manufacturing enterprises have greater sensitivity to high tax rates and will not consider it an inevitable cost due to the implementation of replacing water resource fees with taxes.Finally,based on this,this article summarizes the policy implications of the institutional advantages and dual dividends of water resource tax.It also proposes policy recommendations for policy design and implementation in response to the shortcomings of the existing implementation methods of water resource fee to tax,providing reference for the next pilot expansion of water resource fee to tax policy. |
