Study On Efficiency Of Environmental Expenditure Among Each Provincial Government In China

Environmental protection has also entered a new stage along with current economy into new normal.In recent years,the rapid development of economy and the continuous progress of urbanization and industrialization bring many environmental problems.Environmental protection is a public goods with obvious external effects and also possesses distinctive characteristics of region,therefore,local government shall be the major supplier of environmental protection.“Environmental Protection”in 2007 program,being an official budget one,has been included into government budget.Since then,it gradually becomes a daily management to local government,and its expenditure increases with each passing year.However,environment has not been significantly improved,showing that he efficiency of environmental protection expenditure is low.Thus,we shall assess the efficiency of fiscal expenditure on environment in provincial governments(autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government,hereinafter all referred to as the provinces),explore external factors affecting such efficiency,detect the roots of problems and solve them so as to increase the efficiency,which is our top priority to improve environmental conditions.This paper employs DEA-Malmquis Model and Tobit Model to comprehensively analyze the efficiency of fiscal expenditure on environment in provincial governments and prospective influence factors according to fiscal expenditure panel data of 30 provinces.First of all,corresponding input and output index are selected,and DEA-Malmquist Model is adopted to carry out general,inter-provincial and regional evaluation on the expenditure from the perspectives of static efficiency and dynamic efficiency respectively.And the result shows that the efficiency is low in general,that obvious differences are found between provinces and regions,and that the efficiency of eastern area is higher than that of middle area but the efficiency of some eastern provinces is also far from satisfaction.This paper utilizes Tobit Model and conducts regression analysis on limited dependent variables by selecting overall efficiency assessed by DEA model as explained variable,and those as explaining variable,namely,degree of fiscal decentralization,industrialization level,per capita GDP,public education degree,and population density as well as regional difference so as to furtherexplore the influence of probable external social and economic factors on environmental expenditure efficiency.And the result shows that degree of fiscal decentralization,per capita GDP and public education degree exert remarkable positive effect on the efficiency,and that western region has a significant negative impact on the efficiency.Finally,based on the empirical research conclusion of this article,from two views of internal management and external social and economic environment of the provincial government,we put forward relevant suggestions: Optimize the environment of fiscal expenditure structure,appropriately control the scale of expenditure;Promote the protection technical change of environmental,improve the level of environmental protection technology;Strengthening the innovation of environmental protection management system,enhance the level of environmental management;Increase appropriately the degree of regional fiscal decentralization;Promote regional public education level;Coordinate regional external influencing factors.