| At present,the global air pollution is still serious problem and is an important risk factor endangering public health.With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in China,the air pollution has been increasingly intensified.In particular,the"haze"weather caused by particulate pollution has significantly increased the risk of illness and death of residents.Therefore,the effective prevention and control of air pollution is an important part of China's ecological civilization construction since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.It is also a key path to alleviate social contradictions and improve the quality of people's lives in the new era.Since 2018,the environmental protection tax law(EPTL)has been implemented.It has been widely concerned whether the EPTL can realize the coordinated development of socio-economic and environmental protection under the pressure of slowing economic development and increasing atmospheric environmental risks in the current transition period of China.This paper investigated the environmental and economic effects of the EPTL regulating air pollution from the perspectives of the theory foundation and the mechanism.This paper studied in detail the status quo of global and Chinese air pollution and the EPTL implementing,and then discriminated the problems in implementation of the EPTL,put forward some suggestions about improvement and optimized path.Firstly,this paper empirically studied the environmental effect of the EPTL and its influencing factors and spatial heterogeneity.Specifically,(1)Based on the in-situ monitored PM2.5 concentrations and PM2.5 emissions of local industries,the Bayesian spatiotemporal hierarchical model was used to estimate the PM2.5 emission reduced effects of the EPTL.The EPTL has the effects on reducing the in-situ monitored PM2.5annual average concentrations and total PM2.5 emission of local industry in Chinese 31provincial administrative regions.The spatial patterns of the EPTL's reduced effects of the ground monitored PM2.5 concentrations and local industrial PM2.5 emissions has significant heterogeneity,and the spatial patterns of the two types of the PM2.5 reduced effects of the EPTL was different.Thirdly,there is a certain correlation between the EPTL's reduction effect and the PM2.5 pollution level of the 31 provinces in Chinese mainland,that is,the regions with more serious PM2.5 pollution had better reduced effects of the EPTL,the reverse is worse.(2)The Bayesian Lasso regression model was used to evaluate the influenced magnitudes of the influencing factors on the EPTL's PM2.5pollution reduced effects.Results showed that there are 5 variables is believed to significantly influence the reduced effect of the ground monitored PM2.5 annual average concentrations.More precisely,regional tourism income as a share of GDP(TOV-GDP)is negative influencing factor,other 4 factors,urbanization rate(UR),air pollution of green taxes rate(TRAP),the local green taxes income as a share of GDP(ETR–GDP)and relief(RA),are positive influencing factors.Six variables were believed to significantly influence the EPTL's reduced effect of the regional industrial PM2.5emissions.There is one negative correlated factor,GDP per capita(GDP-PC),five positive correlated factors,the proportion of secondary industry(PSI),green taxes tax rate(TRAP),green taxes tax revenue as a share of GDP(ETR-GDP),relief(RA)and vegetation coverage(VC).In addition,this paper also estimated the influence magnitude and each influencing factor's contribution ratio.(3)Due to air pollution has spatial mobility,the ground in-situ monitored PM2.5 concentrations are cumulative observed results of the PM2.5 emissions of the local and he areas around after regional atmospheric circulation.Therefore,this paper built a spatial spillover index measuring the degree of spatial spillover magnitude of the EPTL's reduced effect of2.5pollution.And then this paper calculated the spatial spillover index of the EPTL's reduced effect of the PM2.5 pollution of the 31 provincial regions in China in 2018-2019.The result showed that the reduced effects of EPTL on PM2.5 pollution in different provincial regions have different spatial spillover indexes,including degree and direction.Secondly,this paper demonstrated the economic effects of the EPTL regulating air pollution from two aspects,the regional green transformation of economic development(RGTED)and the relocation of industrial polluting enterprises(RIPE).(1)Based on the panel data in the 31 provincial regions in 2013-19,this paper employed the Bayesian spatiotemporal hierarchy and ridge regression model to research the economic effects on the pollution charge in 2013-2017 and EPTL in 2018-2019 on the RGTED.The composite index of the RGTED was built by the entropy evaluation method,and the five covariates including administrative order line environmental regulation were controlled in the model.The paper also compared economic effects of the pollution charge in 2013-2017 and EPTL in 2018-2019 on the RGTED.Specifically,on the basis of considering and controlling the executive-ordered environmental regulations and other economic factors,the pollution charge from 2013 to 2017 and the EPTL from 2018 to 2019 both had a positive effect on the RGTED.By comparing the regression coefficients,it can be concluded that the EPTL's positive effect on the RGTED is stronger than that of pollution charge.(2)The 31 provincial regions were divided into two types of areas,"tax rate highland"and"tax rate lowland",according to the relationship between the environmental protection tax rate of the local and the area around.Then the Bayesian panel data model with spatial lag term was used to study the economic effect on the RIPE in the two areas,"tax rate highland"and"tax rate lowland",eliminating the compounding influences of the executive-ordered environmental regulations and other social economic factors.The results show that,firstly,the implementation of the EPTL has a certain inhibitory effect on the development of local polluting industries.Secondly,the difference between the local environmental protection tax rate and the environmental protection tax rate in surrounding provincial regions could indeed encourage polluting industrial enterprises to move to areas with low environmental protection tax rate,that is,the polluting industrial enterprises"tax rate highlands"moved to the surrounding areas,and that of the surrounding areas move to the"tax rate lowlands".Thirdly,the increase of environmental protection tax rate in the"tax rate highland"restrained significantly the number of enterprises above the designated size,and the number of employment in non-private units of high-polluting industrial enterprises.Fourthly,the environmental protection tax rate in the"tax rate highland"area has not shown a significant reatraining effect on the local high pollution industries.Through the above research results,this paper found that there are some problems in the formulation and implementation of the EPTL,i.e.,the unclear tax rate,the lack of effective monitoring mechanism of pollutant emissions,unreasonable environmental protection tax revenue distribution and usage.Therefore,this paper suggests that(1)when designing the calculation rules of environmental protection tax,it is necessary to comprehensively consider the social cost of pollution and the cost of pollution control and prevention,especially the cost of pollution control or prevention of different subjects,and distinguish different situations to choose the appropriate tax method.(2)In terms of the tax collection and management system,the division of labor and cooperation between tax authorities and environmental protection authorities should be further strengthened,the professional advantages and experience of environmental protection authorities should be fully utilized to strengthen the monitoring of pollution emissions,and the resource support and responsibility constraint of the monitoring subjects should be strengthened.(3)In terms of income distribution and usage,the income should be allocated according to the environmental governance rights of governments at all levels and specially used for environmental protection expenditure.In addition,local governments should be given the discretion to collect and administer environmental protection taxes and encouraged to determine appropriate comprehensive pollution control mechanisms based on local conditions. |
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