【作者】 张欣怡；

【导师】 张少春；

【作者基本信息】 财政部财政科学研究所 ， 财政学， 2014， 博士

【摘要】 改革开放三十多年来,我国的政治、经济、社会诸领域发生了翻天覆地的变化,并朝着现代化国家快速迈进。在我国的转型中,财政领域的改革一直处于中心地位,并对经济发展和社会进步发挥着关键作用。在十八届三中全会《中共中央关于全面深化改革若干重大问题的决定》中,又以前所未有的历史高度对财政职能进行了定位,赋予了财政以“国家治理的基础和重要支柱”的特殊地位,从而进一步凸显出财政领域改革与研究的重要性和迫切性。学界普遍认为,中国近几十年的财政改革是以中央向地方的分权为根本特征的,这种分权化趋势带来的影响是复杂而又深远的：一方面,它调动了地方发展经济的积极性,促进了地方政府之间的竞争,从而奠定了我国经济取得巨大成就的制度基础；另一方面,权力的分散和下放也产生了一定的负面效果,最为突出的表现是地方公共物品供给的不足。为加强国家治理能力和治理体系现代化建设,必须对财政体制进行优化设计,这要求我们在充分认识现有财政体制存在问题的基础上,提出具有针对性的建议。然而,现有关于财政分权体制的研究成果主要侧重于财政分权与医疗卫生、教育和基础设施建设等公共物品供给,财政分权与土地出让,以及财政分权同地方政府债务等方面,相对忽略了财政分权体制带来的另一个重要的负面影响——环境污染。近些年来,随着环境污染的不断加剧和国家对于环境保护的重视,环境问题逐渐成为公共议论的热点。党的十八大明确提出了包括生态文明建设在内的“五位一体”总体布局,2014年政府工作报告明确提出“出重拳强化污染防治,坚决向污染宣战”,更是将环境治理提升到国家战略的高度。改善和治理环境首先必须认识环境污染的成因,我国环境污染的成因复杂而又多元,其中一个重要原因是地方政府环境监管上的“缺位”这种“缺位”的背后,是地方政府在现行财政和人事激励机制下的某种理性选择。因此,本文将从财政学和公共经济学的角度分析和解释地方政府的行为偏好以及这种偏好对于环境监管和治理行为的影响,不仅为理解我国环境污染问题提供了新视角,而且丰富了我国环境污染治理的思路。通过阐明财政制度背后蕴含的激励机制,希望对未来财政改革的顶层设计方案提供一定的经验支撑,对公共财政的完善、国民福利的提高和生态环境的保护有借鉴意义。从已有的文献来看,国外对财政分权与环境污染之间的关系研究显然更加成熟,经验分析的模型更加丰富,而国内对这方面的研究起步较晚。从国内已有的研究来看,大部分认为财政分权会妨碍环境质量的提高,但是这些研究对财政分权与环境污染关系的分析存在两方面的不足：第一,已有研究在探讨财政分权与环境污染之间的关系时,没有形成较为一致的答案。这与已有研究中数据的时限、财政分权指标的选取、实证方法的选择都有关系。第二,财政分权对于环境污染影响的传导机制阐述尚不清晰。财政分权通过影响制度环境下的主体行为选择来发挥作用,而目前的研究则将政府内部的行为选择过程视作一个“黑箱”,没有对其作用机制进行深入分析。因此,本文将着重进行两方面的探索：第一,综合已有研究,通过选取动态面板数据、更全面的财政分权指标和控制变量与采用更合适的实证方法,考察财政分权、地方政府竞争对区域环境污染的影响,分析财政分权体制对地方政府的激励作用及其对环境监管行为产生的影响。第二,通过理论分析与综述,本文将财政分权对环境污染的作用机制归纳为三条路径：一是通过改变地方政府的财政支出结构和模式影响环境治理的投入,并最终影响环境污染水平；二是通过改变中央转移支付的强度和方向影响地方政府在环境方面的投入；三是通过影响地方政府的产业政策和产业结构,进而对污染物的排放产生影响。针对已有研究的不足,本文提出了相应的研究假设,并构建了财政分权影响环境污染的研究模型。该模型的重点在于分析财政分权对环境污染的具体影响,以及财政分权如何通过财政支出、中央转移支付和产业结构这三个途径影响环境污染水平。基于2003—2010年我国省级层面的面板数据,本文对财政分权、地方政府竞争水平、财政支出、中央转移支付、产业结构和环境污染等方面的变量进行了描述性统计分析,分析了变量的特征和关系,并运用系统GMM模型对研究假设进行了验证。通过实证分析,本文主要得出以下几点结论：(1)财政分权程度和工业“三废”污染程度之间呈显著的正相关关系,意味着财政分权程度越高,环境污染越严重；(2)在财政分权背景下,地方政府竞争对环境污染具有一定的抑制作用,意味着观察期内地方政府的竞争进入了全方位竞争阶段,逐渐降低了对污染容忍程度,产业结构升级也对高污染产生了一定的挤出效应；(3)地方环境治理支出与废水污染、废气污染以及固体废弃物污染等均存在显著的负相关关系,考虑到地方政府的环保支出后,财政分权变量与废水污染、废气污染以及固体废弃物污染等变量的回归系数仍为显著的负相关关系,表明环保支出对三废污染具有抑制效应以及改善作用；(4)中央转移支付与废水污染、废气污染以及固体废弃物污染等环境污染水平存在正相关关系,考虑到中央转移支付后,财政分权与环境污染仍保持显著的正相关关系。这表明我国中央转移支付制度对环境污染没有发挥抑制效应；(5)高污染产业增加值除与废水污染存在显著的正相关外,与固体废弃物污染、废气污染均存在显著的负相关关系。考虑到高污染产业增加值后,财政分权变量仍与废水污染、废气污染以及固体废弃物等存在显著的正相关关系,这表明财政分权中以经济发展为单一维度的政绩考核激励方式,导致区域高污染产业的快速发展,并最终加剧区域环境污染。本文的研究结论与已有关于这一主题的实证研究并不完全一致,这种差异主要来自于样本选取、测量方式和模型构建上的不同。通过以环境污染为主要研究对象,采用省级面板数据进行实证分析,本文对公共财政学领域做出了有价值的理论和实践贡献：在理论上本文扩展了财政分权与地方公共产品供给关系的研究,深化了关于财政分权影响环境污染机制和渠道的认识,在实践上本文的研究结论能够帮助政策设计者进行对应的制度调整和政策修正,从而促使政府走出当前的环境监管和治理困境。具体的政策建议包括：进一步理清各级政府的环保责权,加强环境保护垂直管理与跨区域协调,探索环境保护税缓解环保支出压力,在一般性转移支付中充分考虑环境因素,加强转移支付制度对环境保护的激励引导,建立生态补偿财政转移支付,强化行政首长对本辖区的环境保护责任,完善公众参与环境监督的渠道,全方位推进环境规制立法、执法与监督。更多还原

【Abstract】 Ever since the reform and opening-up30years ago, China has encountered dramatic changes either in political, economic or social spheres, now leading fast forward to modernization. During the transition, fiscal reform has always been centered and played a pivotal role in China’s economic and social development. In the Decision of CPC Central Committee on Several Important Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform passed by the Third Plenum of18th CPC Central Committee, the positioning of fiscal responsibility was placed unprecedentedly high as the "the cornerstone and backbone of national governance", which further demonstrated the importance and urgent need for fiscal reform and research.It is widely believed in academia that, recent decades of fiscal reform in China is fundamentally featured by decentralization from central government to local authorities, and this trend towards decentralization has influenced profoundly:on one hand, by decentralizing power to lower-level authority, the enthusiasm for economic development has been cultivated among local governments, and the competition between local governments has been greatly provoked, which has laid a systematic groundwork for the outstanding achievement of China’s economy; on the other hand, the decentralizing and release of power has also resulted in some negative effects, especially in the insufficiency of local public goods supply.In order to strengthen the capacity of national governance and modernize the governance system, fiscal system shall be optimally restructured, which requires specific targeted proposals towards those problems in the existing fiscal system. However, the research findings on fiscal decentralization now available mainly focus on fiscal decentralization versus public goods supply, namely medical treatment, public health, education and infrastructure, fiscal decentralization versus land sale and leasing, and fiscal decentralization versus local governments’ debts, whereas environmental pollution, another major negative effect aroused by fiscal decentralization, is seldom addressed.In recent years, as environmental pollution gets worse and environmental protection has received more and more attention from the Government, environmental issues have gradually arisen up to be hot topics of public discussion. The18th National Congress has included ecological civilization progress into its overall approach, and the2014Report on the Work of the Government has put forward a big "jolt" of pollution management and control as part of the National Strategy. To find out what causes environmental pollution shall come first before pollution management and control, yet the causes of environmental pollution in China have been complicated and diversified. One major of them is the "absence" of local government environmental supervision and management. The "absence" reflects a kind of rational choice of local governments under the existing fiscal and personnel incentive system. Therefore, based on the theory of finance and public economics, this paper shall analyze and demonstrate the behavioral preference of local governments and how this preference influence environmental supervision and management, which shall not only offer a new point of view towards the issue of environmental pollution in China, but also enlighten new measures of pollution management and control in China. By means of presenting the incentive mechanism embedded in the fiscal system, this paper hopes to provide experience for future top-level solutions of fiscal reform, and to have some reference for the improvement of public finance system, social welfare and environmental protection.From the existing literature, it seems that the research abroad on fiscal decentralization versus environmental pollution is more advanced, with more diversified analytical models, compared with the relatively late start of the research at home. Most inland research agreed that fiscal decentralization would hinder the environment improvement. However, these conclusions towards fiscal decentralization versus environmental pollution have shortcomings in terms of:Firstly, due to the disparity on the time limit of the research data, the selection of indicators and empirical approaches, the conclusions drawn upon the existing research have never delivered consistent answers to how fiscal decentralization interacts with environmental pollution;Secondly, the present study has failed to illustrate the transmission mechanism of fiscal decentralization upon environmental pollution. Fiscal decentralization transmits its influence by affecting the acting subjects’behavior choices. Yet the present study has considered the process of internal behavior choices as a "black box", without any further probe into the transmission mechanism.In consequence, this paper shall mainly focus on two aspects:firstly, this paper analyzes how fiscal decentralization and local government competition influence regional environmental pollution, and how fiscal decentralization system functions as an incentive to local government and affects the behaviors of environmental management and control, by selecting dynamic panel data, referring to more indicators and variables and applying suitable empirical approaches; secondly, by theoretical deduction this paper summarizes the function mechanism of fiscal decentralization into three parts:the change both in the structure and mode of local fiscal expenditure has influenced the input of environmental pollution control, and eventually the level of environmental pollution; the change in intensity and direction of central government transfer payment has further influenced the local government environmental input; the influence on local industrial policy then acts on the local industrial structure, and afterwards on the emission of environmental pollutants.With regard to the shortcomings of the present study, this paper proposes relevant research hypothesis, and establishes a research model on how fiscal decentralization influence environmental pollution. The emphasis of the model is to analyze the specific effects acted on environmental pollution by fiscal decentralization, and how fiscal decentralization influences the level of environmental pollution by means of fiscal expenditure, central government transfer payment and industrial structure.From the2003-2010China provincial-level panel data, this paper carries out descriptive statistical analysis towards variables in regard to fiscal decentralization, local government competition, fiscal expenditure, central transfer payment, industrial structure and environmental pollution, analyzes the features and relations of these variables, and adopts the GMM system to verify relevant hypothesis. By the analysis of data, this paper draws the following conclusions:firstly, the degree of fiscal decentralization is positively correlative with the degree of the "three industrial wastes pollution", which means the further the fiscal decentralization proceeds, the worse the environmental pollution gets; secondly, in the context of fiscal decentralization, the competition between local authorities can arouse a certain degree of suppressive effect on environmental pollution, which means along with the all-round competition between local authorities during the observation period, the tolerance for pollution has been gradually decreased, and the upgrading of industrial structures also has a certain degree of extrusive effect upon high pollution; thirdly, there is distinctive negative correlation between local pollution control expense and the "three industrial wastes pollution", namely air pollution, water pollution and solid waste pollution, given that after local governments expense for pollution control, the variable of fiscal decentralization is distinctively negative-correlative with the variables of the "three industrial wastes pollution’" which means pollution control expense has suppressive effect on the "three industrial wastes pollution"; fourth, central transfer payment is positively correlative with the "three industrial wastes pollution", given that after central transfer payment is done, the variable of fiscal decentralization is still distinctively positive-correlative with the variable of environmental pollution, which means China’s central transfer payment does not have suppressive effect upon environmental pollution; fifthly, the added value of high pollution industries is distinctively positive-correlative with water waste pollution, whereas it is distinctively negative-correlative with solid waste pollution and air pollution, given that along with the added value of high pollution industries, the variable of fiscal decentralization is still distinctively positive-correlative with the "three industrial wastes pollution", which means as economic development is taken as the only indicator for government performance appraisal, regional high pollution industries are lead to rapid growth, and eventually regional environmental pollution gets worse and worse. Due to the difference in sample selection, measurement and research models, the conclusions of this paper do not go all the way with the present empirical study of this theme.Taking environmental pollution as the major subject of the research, sampled by the provincial-level panel data, this paper has integrated the perspectives of fiscal decentralization and promotion campaign theory, and delivered valuable insights for both theory and practice in the sector of public finance. Theoretically, this paper has enriched the context of the study on fiscal decentralization versus local public goods supply, and deliberated how fiscal decentralization influenced environmental pollution in views of mechanism and mediums; practically, the conclusions drawn upon this paper can help policymakers work on system adjustment and policy amendment, so that the government can consequently smooth away difficulties of environmental monitoring and pollution control. The detailed policy proposals are as follows:governments at all levels shall have well-defined power and responsibility for environmental protection, strengthen line management and cross-regional coordination, and try environmental protection taxes for pollution control expense shortage; general transfer payment shall take fully account environmental factors so that the incentive effect of transfer payment can be amplified upon environmental protection, and fiscal transfer payment for ecological compensation shall be established; the responsibility of chief government officials for environmental protection under their governance shall be further emphasized; governments shall expand participation channels for the public to the public to engage in environmental supervision, and push forward all-round environmental legislation, enforcement and supervision.更多还原