The Impact Of Financial Transfer Payments On Low-carbon Development

In recent years,our economy has developed rapidly,but a lot of environmental problems have come into being at the same time of rapid development.The conflict between economic development and environmental protection has become particularly serious.In order to implement the major decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council on promoting carbon Peaking and carbon neutrality,give full play to the function of finance,and promote the realization of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality on schedule,recently,the Ministry of Finance issued the Opinions on Financial Support for Carbon Peaking and carbon neutrality.The Opinions clearly support six key directions and areas,including supporting the building of a clean,lowcarbon,safe and efficient energy system,supporting the green and lowcarbon transformation of key industries and sectors,supporting green and low-carbon technological innovation and basic capacity building,supporting green and low-carbon life and resource conservation,supporting the consolidation and improvement of carbon sink capacity,and supporting the improvement of the green and low-carbon market system.In recent years,the Ministry of Finance has continued to innovate and improve policies and systems,and adopted a variety of policies and measures,including fiscal fund guidance,tax regulation and government green procurement,to support carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.For example,in strengthening financial security,the central government will strengthen resource coordination and optimize the spending structure in2021,allocating about 350 billion yuan to support green and low-carbon development.At the same time,we will work to establish a diversified funding mechanism,and promote public-private partnerships(PPP)in ecological and environmental protection in a standardized and orderly manner,so as to better leverage the leverage of government funds.Due to the externality characteristic of low carbon development,it can not simply rely on market mechanism to run,need the government’s intervention,financial transfer payment as the government regulates the economy and guides the economic development of flexible policy means,for our country to achieve low carbon development is of great significance.Based on this,panel data of 31 provinces from 2011 to 2021(excluding Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan of China)are selected as research samples to study the impact of financial transfer payments on lowcarbon development,and resource mismatch is introduced to investigate its mediating effect between the two.It is found that financial transfer payments can promote low-carbon development,and resource mismatch plays an intermediary effect between financial transfer payments and lowcarbon development.The analysis of influence mechanism shows that fiscal decentralization strengthens the positive relationship between fiscal transfer payment and low-carbon development,and weakens the mediating effect of capital mismatch.Environmental regulations strengthen the positive relationship between financial transfer payments and low-carbon development,and weaken the mediating effect of labor mismatch.Heterogeneity analysis shows that fiscal transfer payment in the central region plays the most significant role in promoting low-carbon development,followed by the western region and the eastern region.In eastern China,capital mismatch plays a mediating role between fiscal transfer payments and low-carbon development,while labor mismatch is difficult to play a mediating role between fiscal transfer payments and lowcarbon development.In western China,labor mismatch plays an intermediary role between fiscal transfer payment and low-carbon development,while capital mismatch is difficult to play an intermediary role between fiscal transfer payment and low-carbon development.In the central region,the mismatch of capital and labor is difficult to play a mediating effect between financial transfer payment and low-carbon development.The results show Low-carbon development can reduce carbon intensity.Compared with the carbon trading pilot group,lowcarbon development in the non-carbon trading pilot group can reduce carbon intensity more.This paper not only enriches the research perspective of the social effect of fiscal transfer payments,but also improves the research on the influencing factors of low-carbon development.The conclusion of this study has certain theoretical and practical significance for local governments to make reasonable use of financial transfer payments and better promote regional low-carbon development.