The Impact Of Water Resource Tax Reform On Corporate Green Innovation

The water tax reform is not only an important institutional measure to strengthen water resource protection,but also an important tool to promote the development of green economy.Enterprises consume a large amount of water resources in the production process,which becomes the main subject of water resource tax collection.Given the impact of the tax burden from the water resource tax reform,the key to achieving the expected effect of the water resource tax policy is whether enterprises can realize the transition from extensive production to a green production mode of water saving and water protection through the improvement of green technological innovations such as production technology.Therefore,from the perspective of micro-enterprises,it becomes an important topic in theory and reality to analyze the impact of the water resource tax reform on green innovations of enterprises.In this paper,the exogenous event that China’s water resource tax reform entered the pilot test survey in December 2017 is used as a quasi-natural experiment,and the high water consumption enterprises in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2013to 2020 are chosen as the research objects.In the current study,the difference-indifference method is used to test the impact of water resource tax reform on green innovation by enterprises.The results are as follows:(1)The water resource tax reform significantly promoted the green innovation of high water consumption enterprises in the pilot study,and this result is still valid in the robustness test of the placebo test,tendency score,matching sample,multi-time double difference model,green innovation measurement method change and change the sample range.(2)The effect of the water resource tax reform on promoting green innovation of enterprises will continue to increase with the implementation of the water resource tax policy,which will have a significant long-term impact.(3)The micro-mechanism test shows that the stimulus effect of water resource tax reform on green innovation is enhanced through the improvement of internal tax burden and external environmental regulation,supporting the existence of a "forced effect";The promotion effect of the water tax reform on green innovation is enhanced by the state subsidies that enterprises receive and the improvement in the external protection level for intellectual property,confirming the existence of an "incentive effect".(4)Based on the heterogeneity analysis of the internal characteristics and the external environment of enterprises,it is found that the effect of the water resource tax reform on promoting green innovation of enterprises is stronger in enterprises with high innovative ability and private enterprises,and more strongly in the environment of high tax collection and management technology and the green financial development level.(5)Based on the heterogeneity analysis of innovation types and innovation modes,it is found that the water tax reform can not only promote green innovation and green utility model innovation,but also can promote the independent and joint green innovation of enterprises.The possible research contributions of this work are reflected in the following two aspects.This paper first analyzes on a theoretical level the theoretical mechanism of the water tax reform to promote green innovations by enterprises from the dual perspective of counter force and incentive effect.Then the study provides robust empirical evidence through the use of the double difference model,which not only expands research on the economic consequences of water tax reform and environmental regulation policies from the micro-enterprise level,but also research on the drivers of green innovation from enterprise the macro-environmental regulatory level.Finally,on a practical level,this study has positive policy implications for the government on how to further promote the reform of the water resource tax and other resource taxes and realize the coordination and unification of resource protection and economic development.At the same time,it also has certain managerial implications for enterprises on how to deal with the impact of environmental regulation policies such as resource taxes from a green innovation perspective and achieve sustainable development.