The Impact Of Ownership Type On Corporate Environmental Pollution Fee Rate

Since the reform and opening-up,China’s economy has grown rapidly.Especially with the development of manufacturing-oriented industrial enterprises,700 million people have been out of poverty,and China has become the world’s second largest economic entity.However,it brought about serious environmental pollution problems.As the social problems are intensified,haze and other environmental issues have become the focus of public attention in China.Premier Li Keqiang said that environmental pollution problem is the pain of our people,and the World Health Organization predicted that China’s biggest challenge would be the increasingly serious environmental pollution control problems in the coming decade.At present,China’s environmental pollution is mainly regulated by the pollution charge system.Polluting enterprises should pay full amount of environmental pollution compensation fees(pollution charge)for social responsibility at the same time making profits,or they will probably lack the motivation to reduce emissions and will lead to more environmental pollution.However,for what kind of corporate ownership type paid the corresponding pollution compensation fees,only a small amount of literatures has discussed about,and has not yet involved in empirical research.In this study,there are at least two obvious deficiencies in the similar literatures:First,there would be some deviation of the pollution compensation fees from the regional or industrial levels,and the total cost of pollution compensation fee rate(hereinafter referred to as the environmental pollution fee rate)can measure concessions that provinces make to encourage development and employment.Second,the relationship between the ownership type and environmental pollution fee rate need to consider the impact of situational conditions,and the ownership type under different circumstances may bring significant differences in the results.Based on the problems above,this paper takes the company’s environmental pollution fee rate as the research object,examining the impact of the ownership type on the environmental pollution fee rate and exploring the regulatory effects of external economic development level and internal political connections on the relationship between the two.Specifically,this paper attempts to clarify three key issues:(1)whether and how the ownership type affects the corporate environmental pollution fee rate?(2)whether and how the economic development level affects the relationship between ownership type and environmental pollution fee rate?(3)whether and how political relations affect the relationship between the ownership type and environmental pollution fee rate?Based on the questions above,this paper uses case studies and empirical research methods to test.Firstly,this paper takes four listed companies from heavily polluted industries as examples by using exploratory case study method according to the grounded theory ideas,then encodes the case material,refines the core concept,categories and concludes the main dimensions.Finally,this paper concludes three related propositions,which provide the basis for the subsequent empirical study to explore the relationship between the ownership type and the corporate environmental pollution fee rate.Preliminary results of the case study show that the ownership type is the decisive factor affecting the corporate environment pollution fee rate,the relationship between the two will be influenced by two important factors:externally the political connections and internally the economic development level.In the empirical study section,based on the theory of resource dependence,this paper firstly constructs the basic theoretical model of the impact of ownership type on the corporate environmental pollution fee rate.Secondly,it further constructs the theoretical model of moderating effects of provincial development level on the relationship between ownership type and corporate environmental pollution fee rate,and finally the theoretical model of moderating effects of political connections on the relationship between ownership type and corporate environmental pollution fee rate according to the theories on political action and board directors.At the same time,the author collects by hand and forms a panel database including corporate pollution fees consisted by 160 a-share listed companies from the heavily polluted industries from 2009 to 2014.Empirical tests are followed by using STATA,and regression analysis methods as well.The empirical results show that:(1)The ownership type has a significant impact on the environmental pollution rate of enterprises,and the actual environmental pollution rate of state-owned enterprises is significantly lower than that of non-state enterprises.(2)The level of economic development has positive effects on the relationship between the ownership type and the environmental pollution fee rate.With the improvement of economic development level,the gap between the state-owned enterprises and the non-state-owned enterprises is narrowing.The lower the level of economic development,the lower the environmental pollution fee rate of state-owned enterprises than those non-state-owned enterprises.(3)After subdividing the state-owned enterprises,it is found that the higher the proportion of state-owned shares,the lower the environmental pollution fee rate of state-owned enterprises in economically underdeveloped areas.(4)Political connections have negative effects on the relationship between the ownership type and the environmental pollution fee rate.With high political connections,the gap between the state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises further expands;private enterprises with political connections pay the pollution compensation fees as a "political contribution".(5)Further study finds out that the negative moderating effects of political association only apply to the central state-owned enterprises,but do not play a significant role for local state-owned enterprises.The legitimacy of the central state-owned enterprises is the highest and the political connections mean"resources";the state ownership political resources of the local state-owned enterprises have covered the political connections from executives;the political connections of non-state enterprises mean "costs".(6)Overall,state-owned enterprises paid about 35%-50%of the pollution compensation fees less than non-state-owned enterprises.The main innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)From the research perspective,the theory of resource dependence is introduced into the analysis model,which provides the basic theoretical support for the explanation of the relationship between ownership type and corporate environmental pollution fee rate.At present,the study of the ownership type at home and abroad and the corporate environmental pollution fee rate is still at the initial stage.The empirical research is one of the few.This study not only explores the environmental pollution fee rate from the perspective of ownership,but also examines the moderating effects of the economic development level and the political connections on the impact of the relationship between the ownership type and corporate environmental pollution fee rate.(2)From the research content,taking full account of the impact of situational conditions,this study provides a complete interpretation of the framework for the relationship paradox between the ownership type and corporate environmental pollution fee rate.Based on the empirical research,the negative effects of the state of ownership on the environmental pollution fee rate are discussed,the positive moderating effects of economic development level are explained,and the negative moderating effects of political connections are revealed.(3)From the research methods,the study carried out empirical research by using the way of manual collection and collation of large sample data.The author collects a unique panel data on the environmental pollution fee rate among listed companies from heavily polluted industries in China.This study empirically tested the argument that there are pollution fee differences among enterprises proposed by Wang and Wheeler(2003),supported the conclusions that state-owned enterprises create more environmental pollution than that of non-state-owned ones proposed by Jiang et al.(2014),Li and Chan(2016)and Maung et al.(2016).(4)From the research conclusions,it has good application and promotion value.In this study,the relationship between the ownership type,the economic development level,the political connections and corporate environmental pollution fee rate are discussed,which help to solve the current environmental pollution problems and promote the development of mixed economy in China,making up theoretical research deficiencies for the research areas above.This study is also meaningful for those developing countries where state ownership is still dominated and political connections are still prevalent,such as Vietnam,Malaysia and Indonesia.