Research On The Impact Of The Division Of Governmental Environmental Protection Supervision Powers Betweem Central And Local Governments On The High-Quality Economic Development

Environmental protection is an important driving force to promote high-quality economic development.Its promotion effect depends on the institutional arrangement of the environmental management system,and more fundamentally,depends on the division of intergovernmental environmental protection powers.The effective performance of government functions requires the scientific division of labor and effective cooperation of governments at all levels.The premise is to reasonably and clearly divide the scope of authority of governments at all levels and determine the corresponding expenditure responsibilities.The report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to "establish and improve the power structure and operation mechanism of decision-making power,executive power and supervision power,which are mutually restricted and coordinated".As far as environmental protection is concerned,according to the attribute and functional orientation of power,environmental protection powers can be divided into environmental protection decision-making power,environmental protection executive power and environmental protection supervision power.Under the political centralization system,the decision-making power of environmental protection is concentrated in the central government departments.The Environmental Protection Law stipulates a localized environmental management system,and local governments are respon sible for the environmental quality of their administrative regions.That is,the specific environmental protection enforcement power is mostly vested in local governments,and the corresponding expenditure responsibilities are borne by local governments.Local governments undertake multiple functions at the same time.When performing environmental protection functions,they are faced with trade-offs between multiple functions such as economic growth.As rational economic people,local governments are motivated to "focus on the economy over environmental protection" in order to seek their own political and economic interests.Supervision is the fundamental guarantee for the correct operation of power.Therefore,it is crucial to strengthen the central government’s supervision over local governments to ensure that local governments effectively perform their environmental protection responsibilities.Embedded in the reform of China’s environmental management system,environmental protection supervision power has undergone a series of adjustment and reform,such as the establishment regional environmental protection supervision center,the centralization of environmental quality monitoring authority to the central government,and the adjustment of the environmental supervision function to supervise local governments.The central environmental supervision capacity has been continuously strengthened,which helps to break local protectionism and enhance the responsibility of local party committees and governments for environmental protection.In this context,in order to promote the improvement of environmental quality in the jurisdiction,the local government will increase the intensity of environmental regulation,which will have an impact on the regional industrial structure,investment structure,overall innovation level and green development level,thus affecting the high-quality economic development level.Promoting high-quality economic development is an inevitable requirement of China’s economic and social development in the new era.Therefore,based on regional environmental protection supervision centers set up,the environment quality of centralized monitoring of powers to the central government,the adjustment of the environmental supervision function to supervise local government,this paper focuses on the impact of intergovernmental environmental protection supervision power division on high-quality economic development,and expects to provide a reference for reasonable division of intergovernmental environmental protection powers and expenditure responsibility,promoting the modernization of environmental governance system and governance capacity,and promoting high-quality economic development.Based on the research theme,the main research contents of this paper are arranged as follows:The main research contents of this paper are arranged as follows:(1)Through the systematic review and evaluation of the inter-governmental ecological environmental protection powers division and high-quality economic development related literature,the research entry point and research focus of this paper are found.On this basis,the core concepts of this paper are differentiated and defined,the theories on which the article is based are systematically summarized,and the research boundary,theoretical support and action mechanism of this paper are determined.(2)Through the analysis of the changes of China’s environmental management system,especially the changes of the supervision power of ecological environmental protection in the process of change,it has determined two major adjustments and reforms in the power of ecological environmental protection supervision in recent years:the establishment of the regional environmental protection inspection centers and in the process of the reform of the ecological civilization system,the environmental quality monitoring power is collected and the environmental protection supervision system is reformed.Based on the understanding of the connotation of high-quality economic development,the paper constructs a comprehensive evaluation system of high-quality economic development from four dimensions:innovation driven,structural optimization,green development and people’s livelihood improvement,and carries out weight measurement analysis through the improved entropy method.Based on this,the paper conducts a follow-up empirical research.(3)In order to reduce and even eliminate the excessive interference of the same level government in environmental protection supervision under the dual leadership and management system dominated by local governments,and strengthen the supervision of the central government on the performance of environmental protection responsibilities by local governments,the regional environmental protection supervision center was established in June 2006 to act as the agency of the central environmental protection department to perform environmental protection supervision powers on behalf of the central government,and six regional environmental protection supervision centers were established by December 2008,It covers 31 provinces in China.Using this "quasi natural experiment"policy impact,based on the provincial panel data of China from 1998 to 2019,build a progressive double difference model to empirically test the impact of the establishment of the regional environmental protection supervision center on high-quality economic development,and the robustness test was carried out by replacing the measurement method of high-quality economic development and eliminating other policy impacts such as the centralization of environmental quality monitoring authority to the central government and the transformation of environmental supervision functions.(4)In accordance with the guiding spirit of the "Opinions on the Construction of Ecological Civilization" and "the General Plan for the Reform of the Ecological Civilization System",China has carried out the reform of the centralization of power in environmental quality monitoring to the central government and the adjustment of environmental supervision functions.Firstly,based on the re-adjustment reform of environmental protection supervision authority,we empirically investigate the impact of the reform on high-quality economic development by using the provincial panel data from 1998 to 2019.Since the research interval covers the whole process of the establishment of the regional environmental protection supervision center,the policy effect is inevitably affected by whether it is established.To eliminate the impact of the environmental protection supervision center.To eliminate the impact of the environmental protection supervision center,delete the corresponding samples before the establishment of the environmental protection supervision center,and conduct benchmark analysis and subsequent analysis based on the new samples.Secondly,in view of the fact that the centralization of environmental quality monitoring authority to the central government and the function adjustment of the environmental supervision system are almost synchronized,and the policy effect is difficult to separate,Therefore,based on the monthly data of prefecture level cities in China from 2015 to 2019,we empirically test the environmental governance effect of the central environmental protection supervision through the progressive double difference model,which reflects the impact of the adjustment of environmental supervision powers on high-quality economic development.Finally,we use the intermediary effect model to examine whether the adjustment of the division of ecological and environmental supervision powers affects the high-quality economic development level by affecting the behavior of local governments and enterprises.According to the empirical analysis,this paper mainly obtains the following conclusions:(1)The regional environmental protection inspection center is unable to form a strong constraint on the local government due to the existence of institutional obstacles such as unclear inspection objects、unclear responsibilities,insufficient law enforcement basis、mismatched rights and responsibilities,and lack of effective information mechanism and poor information.It even forms a "conspiracy" with the local government to indulge the local government’s behavior,thus hindering the high-quality development of the regional economy.The hindering effect mainly comes from the dimension of power transformation,and the impact on the dimensions of structural optimization,green development and people’s livelihood improvement is not significant.(2)The collection of environmental quality monitoring powers and the reform of supervision system reform have a positive role in promoting the comprehensive level of high-quality regional economic development,as well as the transformation of driving mechanism,structural optimization,green development and improvement of people’s livelihood.The environmental quality monitoring powers has realized "central assessment and central monitoring".The reform of the environmental supervision system has realized the transformation of the functions from"inspecting enterprises" to "supervising government" and "the party and government have the same responsibility".The combination of the two has compressed the space for local governments to manipulate environmental protection data,strengthened the central authority of environmental supervision,and the strong deterrence against environmental protection formed by local governments has prompted them to pay more attention to environmental protection and promote high-quality economic development.(3)The central environmental protection supervision has significantly improved the environmental quality of the areas.The sustainability of the policy effect depends on the normalization of the central environmental protection supervision system.(4)The collection of environmental quality monitoring powers and the reform of environmental supervision have promoted the high-quality comprehensive development level of regional economy and the development level of its constituent dimensions by influencing the behavior of local governments.(5)The collection of environmental quality monitoring powers and the reform of the environmental supervision system have improved the regional green development level by influencing the enterprise behavior,and lowered the regional economic high-quality comprehensive development level and the development level of power mechanism transformation,structural optimization and people’s livelihood improvement.The negative intermediary effect is mainly because the adjustment of the division of environmental supervision authority has reduced the overall scale of industrial pollution control investment.Combined with the empirical analysis conclusion,in order to reasonably define and divide the intergovernmental environmental protection powers,guide the government and enterprise behavior,and promote high-quality economic development,the following policy recommendations are proposed:(1)Optimize the division of Governmental Environmental Protection Supervision Powers;(2)Promote the long-term effectiveness of the central environmental inspection system;(3)Improve local government environmental protection incentives,restraints and guarantee mechanisms;(4)Through green fiscal and tax policies,enterprises can guide their environmental governance behavior.This paper mainly attempts to innovate and expand the existing research in the following aspects:(1)The expansion of research content.Firstly,this paper attempts to expand the content of existing literature on the impact of high-quality economic development,which usually uses a single index such as(green)total factor productivity as a proxy indicator for high-quality economic development.Based on the new development concept and major social contradictions,this paper comprehensively reflects the connotation of high-quality economic development from the four dimensions of innovation driven,structural optimization,green development and improvement of people’s livelihood,so as to take more targeted policy tools to promote high-quality economic development according to different aspects.Secondly,in view of the lack of logical self-consistency in previous literature,which mostly uses the index of fiscal decentralization as a proxy indicator for environmental decentralization,this paper takes the specific intergovernmental division of authority adjustment and reform events as the research object,which can more comprehensively and objectively describe the changes in the allocation of intergovernmental environmental power,and reduce the impact of potential endogenous problems on the research conclusions.(2)Innovation in research perspective.Environmental protection runs through all fields and aspects of production and life,and is a powerful driving force for promoting high-quality economic development.The externality of the environment determines that the government is the main responsible body for the implementation of environmental protection,and the key to the government’s environmental protection responsibility and environmental public services lies in the construction of a scientific environmental management system.Therefore,different from the existing research perspectives of innovation,industrial structure and other influencing factors,this paper takes the core institutional arrangement of the environmental management system and the division of intergovernmental environmental protection powers as the starting point to investigate the impact and influence mechanism of environmental decentralization on the high-quality development level of regional economy.