To Evaluate Economic Impacts Of Air Pollution Control Based On CGE Model

During the past more than 30 years,China has made remarkable achievements in many aspects,such as politics,economy,education,sports,military and so on.However,the problems in the environment,especially in the atmospheric environment have become increasingly prominent.In this context,a dynamic multi region general equilibrium model is established in this paper,which is used to simulate and analyze the effects and the economic consequences of various types of air pollution control measures.As to model,most previous papers used econometric models,a multi regional dynamic CGE model is tentatively employed in this paper,which is scarce in the current research literature about economic impacts for governance haze.In the geographical scope,the whole China is divided into nine regions,including the Yangtze River Delta,Northeast,Around-Jing-Jin-Ji,Jing-Jin-Ji,South,Northwest,Southwest,Central and the Pearl River Delta region.In the data,latest available “Interregional Input-Output Table for 30 Provinces in China” is used in this paper.About model designing,many modules are embodied in this model,for instance,production,consumption,international import and export,regional import and export,investment,pollutant emissions and other modules.In addition,in order to study the impacts of emission reduction policies on the current and future periods,and analyze the consequences of the continuous emission reduction policies,a dynamic module is founded in this paper,and the simulation period is extended to 2030.With regard to the simulation scenarios,three categories of air pollution governance measures,that is environmental tax,emissions trading mechanism and technological innovation.In chapter four,this paper clarifies the economics theory about controlling air pollution by environmental tax.The economics theoretics has been expounded from the perspective of Pigou tax and welfare economics.A great deal of references are reviewed here and some experiences are drawn about their simulation assignment for tax rate of SO2 or CO2 on different countries,and then four scenarios about pollution tax are designed according to China's current situation.These scenarios are sulfur taxation with uniform-low rate(A01),uniform-high rate(A02),date-different rate(A03)and region-different rate(A04).According to simulation results,some conclusions are drawn:(a)If pollution tax policy is launched,the annual average of PM2.5 concentration will drop sharply.(b)The sulfur tax will increase nominal GDP whereas depress real GDP.(c)The economic impacts are most significant during the first year of SO2 tax implementation or change or tax rate,while the impacts decay latter and they are faint during the end of simulation period.(d)If sulfur tax policy is only implemented in parts of regions,the pollution emissions will decrease in those regions with sulfur tax and increase in those regions without sulfur tax.In other words,“pollution leakage” phenomenon exists in China.In chapter five,three scenarios about emissions trading scheme are designed in light of constraint power on SO2 emissions.Thirty scenarios are B01,B02 and B03,ordered from loose to strict.The simulation results show that:(a)If SO2 emissions trading scheme is launched to restrain sulfur emissions,China's real GDP will decline compared to the baseline scenario,GDP deflator will rise and nominal GDP will boom.(b)Under the part-regions-constraint scenario(B01),air quantity of four regions with emissions constraint will improve,while annual average of PM2.5 concentratio in other five regions without emission constraint will be greater than those in baseline scenario.(c)Trading prices for SO2 emissions right in heavy-polluted regions are significantly higher than those in light-polluted regions,and the trading prices are increasing year by year.(d)Implementation of SO2 emissions trading system will lead to a general increase production costs in most sectors and push up sales prices for most commodities.In chapter six,two simple scenarios are designed about improving energy efficiency(D01)and advancing clean energy technology(D02),and then two composite scenarios(D03 and D04)which embody technological progress and SO2 tax are simulated in this paper.The simulation results indicate that:(a)Improving energy efficiency will stimulate macroeconomy and enlarge employment,at the same time,the pollution concentration will drop sharply.(b)Under the composite scenario constituted by sulfur tax and energy efficiency improvement,the positive effects from technological progress will partly or even completely offset the negative impacts on economy from sulfur tax,pollution emission decrease slightly and employment expand a little.(c)Development of energy clean technology can alleviate the serious smog problem nowadays.If it is launched together with sulfur tax,the negative impacts on GDP will alleviated greatly,compared to the single sulfur tax scenario.(d)If the clean technology improve quickly enough,then the inhibitory effect of sulfur tax on the real economy will be greatly reduced,the total GDP in composite scenario approximates that in baseline scenario.In chapter seven,the air pollution problems in five developed countries,that is Japan,the United States,Britain and so on,are introduced and the successful experience of their treatment of air pollution summarized in chapter seven.The problem of air pollution is almost a "inevitable stage" during their transformation from poor to developed countries,and the issue of air pollution become most awful during their industrialization and urbanization process.Based on the simulation results of this paper and the successful experience of the developed countries,policy recommendations for policy makers are put forward in this paper.First of all,the air pollution control should be kicked off from the top-level design planning.Second,in order to provide legal protection for the treatment of air pollution,the construction of the rule of law in environmental protection should accelerate in China.In addition,the government should consummate the mechanism of citizen participation and fully mobilize the enthusiasm of citizens to participate in the governance of air pollution.Finally,raising the level of science and technology is one of the most fundamental and effective means for air pollution governance.What's more,optimizing the energy consumption structure,reducing the coal proportion in primary energy consumption is the most direct way to solve the current air pollution.It is worth mentioning that the full use of the market mechanism of air pollution governance is a powerful complement to administrative mandatory emission reduction,it can also encourage enterprises to carry out technological innovation,accelerate technological innovation,and also to guide the energy consumption structure towards a more reasonable direction adjustment.