Research On The Environmental Governance Effects Of Heterogeneous Environmental Policy Tools

The ecological environment is the basis of the survival and development of human society,which is related to the long-term stability of the country and the happiness of the people's life.The protection of the ecological environment plays an important role in the present age and benefits for thousands of years.With the continuous development of the production and life of human society,the dependence on environmental resources is increasing,which leads to the destruction of the ecological environment all over the world.In order to protect the ecological environment andguard the common homeland of mankind,governments of all countries are actively exploring environmental governance measures suitable for their national conditions,and various environmental policy tools have become the key means for governments(including central and local governments)to govern the environment.Different environmental policy tools show different environmental governance effects in solving different environmental problems due to the differences in their implementation subjects and action mechanisms.Although a large number of literatures have studied the environmental governance effects of different environmental policy tools,there are still many environmental policy tools that have not attracted enough attention on specific environmental issues,and the related issues need to be further studied.Therefore,this paper focuses on three types of heterogeneous environmental policy tools,namely,command control,market incentive and social participation,and examines the environmental governance effects of each specific environmental problem,from the perspective of three specific heterogeneous environmental policy tools:fiscal decentralization,carbon emission trading mechanism and corporate environmental responsibility information disclosure.The specific research questions are as follows:(1)The first sub research focuses on the environmental governance effect of command and control tools,and studies how fiscal decentralization,as a command and control policy tool of the central government,affects the environmental preference and environmental governance efficiency of local governments.(2)The second sub research focuses on the environmental governance effect of market incentive tools,and studies the spillover effect of emission trading mechanism as a market incentive policy tool on PM2.5 emission damage.(3)The third sub research focuses on the environmental governance effect of social participation tools,and studies the mediating role of corporate environmental responsibility information disclosure between the intensity of environmental law enforcement and the frequency of environmental emergencies.Based on the above three research issues,this paper studies the impact of fiscal decentralization on local government's environmental governance efficiency and its mechanism,the spillover effect of emission trading mechanism on PM2.5 emission damage reduction,and the corporate environmental environmental responsibility information disclosure how to promote government environmental law enforcement and reduce the frequency of environmental emergencies by using provincial panel data of China and national panel data released by the World Bank.The main conclusions and innovations are as follows:(1)Based on the analysis of China's provincial panel data,this paper reveals that fiscal decentralization,as a command and control tool of the central government,has a significant negative correlation with the environmental governance efficiency of local governments,and the environmental preference of local governments plays a mediating role in the relationship between fiscal decentralization and environmental governance efficiency.That is,fiscal decentralization has a negative impact on the efficiency of environmental governance through its negative impact on local government's environmental preference.At the same time,this effect shows regional heterogeneity,that is,in the inland areas with low level of economic development,fiscal decentralization inhibits the government's environmental preference and reduces the efficiency of environmental governance,but in the coastal areas with high level of economic development,fiscal decentralization has no significant impact on the efficiency of environmental governance.This study clarifies that fiscal decentralization,as a command and control tool,is an important antecedent influencing local government's environmental governance preference and governance efficiency,which expands the literature research on government's environmental governance effect,and further enriches the related research on the potential consequences of fiscal decentralization on public policy implementation.The research results provide empirical evidence for the central government to arrange fiscal decentralization system according to local conditions,so as to improve the environmental preference and environmental governance efficiency of local governments(2)Taking the EU emission trading mechanism as the research object,this paper uses the method of double difference analysis and propensity score matching,and reveal that as a market incentive environmental policy tool,the implementation of the emission trading mechanism can produce spillover effect on the reduction of PM2.5 emission damage.Combined with the in-depth study of the phased implementation of EU emission trading mechanism,it is found that only relatively strict emission trading mechanism(such as covering more energy consuming industries,more air emissions,and implementing more stringent emission targets,etc.)can really reduce PM2.5 emission damage,otherwise it will not really effectively reduce PM2.5 emission damage.This study further enriches the relevant research on the consequences of the implementation of the emission trading mechanism,provides empirical evidence for the environmental pollution control effect of the emission trading mechanism,which is a market incentive policy tool,and also makes up for the deficiency of the current research on the antecedents of PM2.5 emission damage.(3)Based on the analysis of China's provincial panel data,this paper reveals that corporate environmental responsibility information disclosure,as a social participatory environmental policy tool,plays a complete intermediary role between government environmental law enforcement and environmental emergencies,that is,the intensity of government environmental law enforcement can not directly reduce the frequency of environmental emergencies,but can reduce the frequency of environmental emergencies by positively influencing the disclosure of corporate environmental responsibility information.This study is a useful supplement to the literature on corporate environmental responsibility information disclosure,and provides empirical evidence supporting the important role of corporate environmental responsibility information as an important social participation policy tool in solving specific environmental problems(such as environmental emergencies),and makes it clear that the enterprise's active environmental responsibility behavior is an important path for the government to play the role of environmental law enforcement,and then prevent and control environmental emergencies.The research results of this paper further enrich the relevant research on the environmental governance effects of environmental policy tools,and provide a new research perspective on the environmental governance effects of three types of environmental policy tools:command control,market incentive and social participation.At the same time,it is also conducive to guiding the government to formulate practical environmental rules and policies,and adopt effective and efficient environmental governance tools for specific environmental problems,so as to further improve the efficiency of environmental governance.