| Since the reform and opening up,along with the steady growth of China’s economy,various types of environmental emergencies occur frequently,such as groundwater pollution,hazardous article leakage and so on.This indicates that environmental risks are taken place with increasing frequency in our country.According to the data from China Statistical Yearbook,in 2008 our countries’environmental events occurred 474 times.In 2013,the data is 712 times which is increased by 50.21%.Besides frequent environmental events,in recent years,the severity of air pollution,water pollution and other types of pollutions is shocking.In 2012,40%of Chinese rivers were seriously polluted.In 2015,the number of cities which is covered by fog and haze had reached 1523.Under the pressure that environmental problem is more and more serious,the central government actively uses a variety of fiscal and tax policies to promote construction of ecological civilization,including fiscal expenditure,environmental taxes and fees,transfer payments.For example,from 2007 to 2013,the scale of national fiscal expenditure on environment protection is increased from 99.58 billion to 343.52 billion。In 2011,the Ministry of Finance issued "the measures for transfer payment of national key ecological functional zones" which provides that the central government will give local governments some reward or punishment on the allocation of transfer payment,according to the situation of ecological environment in different regions.In August 2011,the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress firstly discussed environmental protection tax law(Draft).This means that China’s environmental tax reform has entered a new stage.However,in the process of implementing the above-mentioned fiscal policies,that some problems more or less happen affects the environmental effectiveness.For example,performance evaluation is lacked in the process of environmental budget expenditure;environmental tax has not yet formally been collected;the coverage of ecological transfer payment is too narrow.In this context,this paper attempts to empirically analyze the impact of the fiscal policies on China’s environment by using the historical data,from two aspects of scale and structure,so as to provide reference for government decision-making.Firstly,focusing on the problem that performance evaluation is lacked in the process of environmental budget expenditure,this paper selects 9 input and output indicators,according to the environmental protection policies and regulations,the contents of the environmental budget and the existing statistical data.Then,the modified DEA method and Malmquist index are used to estimate the efficiency of fiscal expenditure in 30 Chinese provinces,from static and dynamic aspects.Based on the Malmquist index and Tobit panel model,this paper analyzes the environmental impact from the scale of financial expenditure for environment protection and external factors such as the level of economic development.Secondly,in the context that China’s economic growth is slowing down and the economic structure needs to be adjusted,government should not simply rely on expanding the scale of fiscal expenditure on environmental protection to improve ecological environment.So embarked from three types of department such as polluting department,environmental department and human resources department,this paper deduces the transmission mechanism that fiscal expenditure structure affects environmental quality.On this basis,this paper empirically analyzes the influence of fiscal expenditure structure on the emission of industrial "three wastes"by the panel data model.From the results of the analysis,it can significantly inhibit the industrial "three wastes" emissions by expanding expenditure ratio of science,education,culture,hygiene and environmental protection.Therefore,the government should increase the proportion of non-productive fiscal expenditure.On one hand,this way can reduce the consumption of fossil energy such as coal,and control pollutant emissions;on the other hand,it can improve the public income level and increase the demand for environmental protection,which will forced the government to implement more stringent environmental regulations on enterprise pollution.Thirdly,due to the fact that China has not yet formally collected environmental tax,this paper uses computable general equilibrium models to simulate the situation of collecting environmental tax,so as to observe its influence on environmental quality and macro economy.In order to keep with actual reality,under the assumption that environmental quality can affect the output of enterprise and the nature has self-purification ability,this paper uses CGE to analyze the economic and environmental impact of imposing environmental tax again.From the analysis results,environmental tax can effectively reduce emissions of pollutants.At the same time,under the principle of tax neutrality,the negative impact of environmental tax on labor,employment,household consumption,enterprise output and other macroeconomic variables is relatively weaken.Therefore,collecting environmental tax is an important measure for government to carry out tax reform and protect ecological environment.Fourthly,although China has not yet collected environmental tax,some existing taxes and fees still have environmental effects in theory,such as sewage charges,resource tax and so on.In order to test the necessity of levying environmental tax,as well as to provide references for government to improve the green tax system,this paper uses panel model to empirically analyze the impact of the above-mentioned environmental taxes and fees on pollutant emissions.From the analysis result,it is difficult for sewage charges,resource tax and other taxes to curb the emissions of sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand.Not only that,some tax even will promote pollutant emission.The result also shows that the environmental effects of the above-mentioned taxes and fees in east regions are better than the effects in central and western regions.Therefore,on the one hand,government should improve collection methods,collection standards and collection supervision of the existing environmental tax in order to play their roles in environmental protection;on the other hand,government should begin to collect environmental tax as soon as possible.In particular,when government sets environmental tax rates,it should consider the regional differences including the level of economic development,geographical environment and environmental endurance.Fifthly,in addition to financial expenditure and environmental taxes,the central government can also motivate local government control pollution and improve environment by transfer payment.In order to analyze the environmental effect of transfer payment,this paper finds marginal rate of substitution formula about pollution and consumption by theoretical derivation.The results show that there is a negative relationship between the level of transfer payments and the degree of local environmental pollution.Then,through the panel model this paper analyzes how the transfer payment scale and structure affect industrial "three wastes" emissions.The results showed that both of them had some inhibitory effect on industrial "three wastes" emission.Especially,the effect is higher in west and lower in east.Therefore,the central government can increase the degree of fiscal centralization by increasing transfer payments,so as to curb resources waste and pollution emissions caused by blind investment of local governments.Especially in the underdeveloped areas of the middle and west provinces,the scale and proportion of transfer payments can be greater.This way will not only achieve the goal of balancing financial revenue and expenditure but also protect the environment and curb pollution emissions. |
