A Study Of The Impact Of Fiscal Decentralization On Ecological Welfare Performance In China

Since the founding of New China,China’s fiscal system has undergone many reforms and developments,forming the typical features of political centralization and economic decentralization.The fiscal decentralization system is an important part of China’s fiscal system and is of profound significance for examining the fiscal relationship between the central and local governments and understanding government behavior.In the context of fiscal decentralization,local governments have greater decision-making power and autonomy over local economic development,but they also face the contradiction of imbalance between financial and administrative powers,which requires local governments to balance economic development and public goods provision,and not infrequently sacrifice the environment and residents’ welfare in pursuit of high GDP.Based on the perspective of sustainable development concept and eco-welfare concept,this paper takes the fiscal decentralization system as the research object to discuss its impact on the eco-welfare performance in China.Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2005 to 2020,this paper conducts a theoretical and empirical study on the impact of the Chinese-style fiscal decentralization system on ecological welfare performance.The main findings are as follows: first,this paper estimates the ecological welfare performance index using the super-efficient SBM model under the data envelopment model,and analyzes the distribution and evolution of ecological welfare performance in China through three-dimensional Kernel kernel density estimation.The results of the index measurement and analysis show that the overall trend of ecological welfare performance in China is decreasing during the observation period,and the distribution pattern is decreasing in a stepwise manner from east to middle to west among the three major regions.The spatial autocorrelation test of ecological welfare performance reveals that there are significant spatial positive correlations and spatial clustering distribution characteristics.Second,the results of the spatial Durbin model with double fixed effects on the impact of three different fiscal decentralization indicators on ecological welfare performance show that the fiscal decentralization system can improve the overall ecological welfare performance of local governments by increasing their fiscal spending power,but there is a negative spatial spillover effect on ecological welfare performance.Among the three indicators of fiscal decentralization,fiscal revenue decentralization has the weakest effect on ecological welfare performance.Third,the spatial effects of fiscal decentralization on ecological welfare performance were decomposed and found that the direct effect was positive,the indirect effect was significantly negative,and the indirect effect was larger than the direct effect.Fourth,further examining the derivative of fiscal decentralization-fiscal vertical imbalance-finds that fiscal vertical imbalance not only has a suppressive effect on the ecological welfare performance of the region,but also has a negative spillover effect on the green development of neighboring provinces.Finally,based on the above study,the following policy recommendations are proposed:(1)Improve fiscal decentralization reform,establish a central-territory fiscal relationship with clear authority and responsibility,coordinated financial resources,and regional balance,and take into account a reasonable distribution of authority in both revenue and expenditure.(2)Give full play to the central government’s ability to coordinate the overall situation,assume the role of intermediate coordinator,establish a multi-party coordination and cooperation mechanism,protect the environment with attention to inter-regional joint prevention and control,and circumvent the free-rider mentality between regions.(3)The central government should further improve the appraisal system of local governments and increase the weight of environmental quality and residents’ welfare in the government performance appraisal system,so as to better motivate local officials to combat environmental pollution and commit to policy measures to improve residents’ welfare.(4)Local governments under fiscal decentralization can actively guide the development of local industries through their own fiscal behavior and policy design,and local governments can strengthen regional cooperation and establish industrial alliances to promote high-quality economic development.