摘要
提升碳排放绩效是减缓气候变化和实现可持续发展的有效途径。基于中国2000—2011年的省际面板数据,本文构造静态与动态空间面板模型检验了环境规制与碳排放绩效之间的关系。研究揭示,环境规制与碳排放绩效之间呈显著的倒U型关系,即随着环境规制强度的增加,主导力量由"创新补偿"效应演变为"遵循成本"效应,蕴含环境规制对碳排放绩效的提升有"度"的限制;样本期内,中国环境规制强度位于倒U型曲线拐点的左侧,意味着进一步提升环境规制强度有利于提高碳排放绩效;碳排放绩效的空间溢出效应在地理位置和地理距离相邻的地区表现为"涓滴效应",而在经济发展水平相邻的地区则表现为"极化效应";财政分权显著弱化了环境规制影响碳排放绩效的"创新补偿"效应,而污染治理投资则有效软化了"遵循成本"效应。因此,为了充分发挥环境规制助推碳排放绩效的倒逼作用,除了适当提高环境规制强度和加强跨界环境合作之外,还需要有效避免地方政府对环境规制的"非完全执行"现象。
How to control and limit climate change caused by our growing consumption of fossil fuels is among the most pressing policy challenges facing the word today. Theoretically, enhancing the carbon emissions performance is an effective way to mitigate climate change and achieve sustainable development. As for China, improving carbon emissions performance is not only the important way to ＂Beautiful China＂, but also is the manner of achieving economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization. Therefore, there is growing line of literature concerning with how to enhance carbon emissions performance. However, it is unfortunate that the spatial characteristics of carbon emissions performance and the role of environmental regulations are lack of attention. Bind this in mind, using a panel data of 30 provinces in China during 2000-2011, this paper employs DEA sequence to estimate carbon emissions performance and finds that interregional carbon emissions performance is characterized by spatial dependence. The relationship between environmental regulations and carbon emissions performance is then investigated by the static and dynamic spatial panel data models based on three spatial weights matrices including geographic adjacency, geographical distance and economic distance.
The contributions of this paper can be summarized as three aspects ： （ 1 ） Compared to the existing literature on the ＂Porter Hypothesis＂ verification mostly concentrated in the areas of production technology and environmental efficiency, this paper explore the impact of environmental regulations on carbon emissions performance and identify the specific impact mechanism, enriching the existing research on ＂Porter Hypothesis＂. （2） In order to avoid the estimation problem caused by the neglect of spatial correlation, this paper employs spatial econometric models, as well as investigating the spatial spillover effects of carbon emission performance. （3） Meanwhile, this paper investigate how environmental regulations influenced by local government behavior affect carbon emission performance under the context of Chinese-style decentralization.
Our results indicate that the relationship between environmental regulations and carbon emissions performance is inverted U-shaped. In other words, with increase of the stringency of environmental regulations, carbon emissions performance varies from rising to failing, implying that dominant power varies from ＂innovative compensation＂ effect to ＂compliance costs＂ effect. As a consequence, there is ＂quantity＂ constraints of environmental regulations enhancing carbon emissions performance. More specifically, the stringency of China＇s environmental regulation locates on the left side of turning point of inverted U-shaped curve in the sample period, meaning that it is beneficial for carbon emissions performance when Chinese government enhance the stringency of environmental regulations. The spatial spillover effects of carbon emissions performance is ＂trickle-down effect＂ if the provinces are adjacent to each other in geographical location and distance, while that is ＂polarization effect＂ if the level of economic development between provinces are similar. In addition, fiscal decentralization significantly weakens ＂innovative compensation＂ effect of the impact of environmental regulations on carbon emissions performance, while pollution control investment effectively softens the compliance costs effect.
In order to take full advantage of environmental regulations improving carbon emissions performance, China should appropriately increase the stringency of environmental regulations and strengthen cross-border environmental cooperation. Moreover, it is significant for China to avoid incomplete enforcement phenomenon of environmental regulations. Therefore, the central government should reform the current appraisal system of local government performance and foster healthy competition among local governments.
出处
《经济管理》
CSSCI
北大核心
2014年第12期166-175,共10页
Business and Management Journal ( BMJ )
基金
国家社会科学基金重大项目"我国矿产资源跨期优化配置机制研究"(11&ZD169)
江苏省普通高校研究生科研创新计划项目"环境规制缓解能源稀缺性与外部性的作用机理及实证研究"(KYZZ_0379)
关键词
环境规制
碳排放绩效
静态和动态空间面板模型
environmental regulations
carbon emissions performance
static and dynamic spatial panel data model
作者简介
（1988-），男，江苏盐城人。博士研究生，研究领域是能源与环境经济。E-mail：cumt_zhanghua@126．com。
