| Since Economic reform and opening up,China's rapid economic growth has been accompanied by severe environmental pollution,and economic and environmental development have been out of step.At this stage,China has entered a new period from high-speed development to high-quality development.Achieving coordinated development of economy and environment is an important issue that needs to be resolved urgently.China implements a tax-sharing fiscal decentralization system under political centralization.The central government holds the personnel appointments of local officials.While obeying the central government's management directives,local governments have a certain range of autonomous management powers and dominate regional development.Therefore,the local government behavior has profoundly affected the regional economic development and environmental protection.Local governments are rational "economic people".Their preferences determine the allocation of regional resources between economy and environment,which in turn affects economic growth and environmental protection.Based on this reality,according to the theory of sustainable development,this paper selects eco-efficiency as an indicator to measure the degree of coordinated development of economy and environment,and uses the Super Efficiency SBM model based on unintended output to measure eco-efficiency of 30 provinces(municipalities,autonomous Region)in 2003-2017,briefly analyzes the current status and differences of eco-efficiency from two dimensions of time and space,and quantify the local government behavior from three aspects: fiscal decentralization,local government competition and local government rent-seeking,construct a dynamic panel data model,and use Two Step System GMM to empirically analyze how local government behavior affects eco-efficiency.Finally,relevant policy Suggestions are put forward according to the conclusion,so as to improve the local government's behavior,improve eco-efficiency,and promote the coordinated development of economy and environment.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)The overall level of eco-efficiency of 30 provinces(municipalities,autonomous Region)in China is low.Although there is a positive trend,it is not obvious,and the regional differences are significant.It decreases from the east to the midwest,showing the regional differences of "the best in the east,the second in the middle,and the worst in the west".(2)Different aspects of local government behavior have different effects on eco-efficiency.The impact of fiscal decentralization on eco-efficiency is significantly negative,which is mainly due to the local government's preference for the economy and the implementation of various environmental protection measures issued under the dual incentives of fiscal benefits and promotion competition.Local government competition and eco-efficiency have significantly positive correlation,the "pollution halo" hypothesis is established.Fiscal decentralization allows local governments to freely broaden channels for attracting investment and avoid vicious competition from the government.In addition,the scale effect,technology spillover effect,and structural effect brought by foreign capital entry are conducive to promotion.Regional economy and environment develop in common,so that local government competition has a positive impact on eco-efficiency.Local government rent-seeking has a negative impact on eco-efficiency.In the absence of effective supervision,the local government as a rational economic person may make rent-seeking for self-interest.Local governments may challenge the environmental policy and the resulting rent-seeking behavior of low administrative efficiency make rent-seeking is not conducive to the development of environment,moreover,rentseeking behavior will break the social justice,is not conducive to regional technological progress and effective use of resources,which is not conducive to economic development.Therefore,rent-seeking by local governments has a negative impact on economy and environment,which is not conducive to the improvement of ecoefficiency.(3)Science and technology expenditure is negatively correlated with ecoefficiency.At present,science and technology expenditure has problems such as unreasonable structure and low use efficiency,which is not conducive to achieving green and efficient economic development,and its impact on eco-efficiency is negative.The level of urbanization is nonlinearly related to eco-efficiency.In the initial stage of urbanization,the development of the economy has increased environmental pollution and is not conducive to improving eco-efficiency.The environment has a benign effect,which is conducive to the realization of green development and the improvement of eco-efficiency.The foreign trade dependence is significantly positive,to a certain extent,import and export trade with other countries promotes the development of economy in our country,also makes China have the opportunity to introduce more efficient production technology,obtain more advanced equipment resources and environmental management experience,in turn facilitates the efficient use of resources and the development of environment.Therefore,the foreign trade dependence on ecoefficiency has a positive influence.Therefore,the corresponding policy suggestions are put forward as follows:(1)Play the leading role of high efficiency zones and take measures to improve eco-efficiency based on local conditions.(2)Advocate the concept of green development and improve the performance evaluation system.(3)Increase foreign investment and increase the degree of opening up.(4)Strengthen supervision and management,and strictly enforce local government actions.(5)Promote a new type of urbanization and rationalize science and technology expenditure to promote green development. |
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