School of Public Economics and Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai 200433, China.
School of Finance, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai 200433, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Feb 10;755(Pt 1):142536. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142536. Epub 2020 Sep 29.
Promoting environmental management system reform in an orderly manner and coordinating central and local environmental protection responsibilities are important for high-quality economic development. Based on panel data of 289 cities in China from 2008 to 2016, this paper uses the fixed effects model and threshold regression model to discuss the relationships among regional competition, environmental decentralization, and target selection of local governments and to analyze whether environmental decentralization produces the Porter effect. Findings show that environmental decentralization does significantly promote economic development, strengthen environmental pollution control, and generate a strong Porter effect, due to greater R&D investment, improvement in green technology innovation ability, and optimization of the industrial structure. The effect of environmental decentralization shows significant regional heterogeneity in terms of regional financial pressure, economic development level, and environmental pressure, while regional competition distorts the effect of environmental decentralization. With the intensification of regional competition, environmental decentralization greatly improves the emission intensity of pollutants, whereas it promotes economic development after inhibiting it. The above conclusions are of great significance for pushing forward environmental decentralization, formulating a differentiated environmental decentralization strategy, and perfecting the government performance appraisal system.
有序推进环境管理体制改革，协调中央和地方环境保护责任，对实现经济高质量发展具有重要意义。本文基于 2008-2016 年中国 289 个城市的面板数据，利用固定效应模型和门槛回归模型，探讨了地区竞争、环境分权与地方政府目标选择之间的关系，并分析了环境分权是否产生了波特效应。研究结果表明，由于加大了研发投入、提高了绿色技术创新能力、优化了产业结构，环境分权显著促进了经济发展，加强了环境污染治理，产生了强大的波特效应。环境分权的效果在区域金融压力、经济发展水平和环境压力方面具有显著的区域异质性，而地区竞争则扭曲了环境分权的效果。随着地区竞争的加剧，环境分权极大地提高了污染物排放强度，而在抑制经济发展后又促进了经济发展。上述结论对于推进环境分权、制定差异化的环境分权策略和完善政府绩效评估体系具有重要意义。
