LIU Zishuo School of Economics
ABSTRACT
The report of the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that we must firmly establish and practice the concept that green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains, and plan for development at the height of harmonious coexistence between man and nature. Specifically, high-quality development of the national economy requires breakthroughs in accelerating the green transformation of the development mode, deeply promoting environmental pollution prevention, actively and steadily promoting carbon peak and carbon neutralization, and improving the diversity, stability and sustainability of the ecosystem. At the same time, the government, as the market manager, actively implements macro-control and other relevant economic functions, including the pollution discharge fee system established in the Environmental Protection Law (for trial implementation) of 1979 and the Environmental Protection Tax Law of the People's Republic of China， passed legislation on December 25，2016 and officially implemented on January 1，2018. Although the conversion from pollution discharge fee to environmental protection tax shows that China's green tax system is constantly improving. However, the impact of environmental protection tax on green technology innovation and whether the unification of economic development and environmental protection can be achieved still need to be further studied and explored. Under the background of environmental protection tax collection, the external cost of environmental governance of high energy consumption, high emissions and high pollution production behavior in the steel industry is converted into the internal cost of the enterprise. Therefore, whether the environmental tax can force the iron and steel enterprises to carry out green transformation and upgrading and green technology innovation activities needs empirical consideration. In addition, the long cycle and high-risk characteristics of green technology innovation investment limit the green technology research and development activities of enterprises to a certain extent, so the government often helps enterprises share the costs and risks of green innovation through financial subsidies and other forms, and its policy implementation effect still needs to be investigated and verified
Based on the above problems and analysis, this paper collects and collates domestic and foreign research literature on the impact of environmental taxes and government subsidies on green technology innovation of enterprises, and deeply analyzes the mechanism of environmental taxes and government subsidies on green technology innovation of iron and steel enterprises and puts forward research hypotheses supported by externality theory, Pigou tax theory, "double dividend" hypothesis and other related theories, Finally select the panel data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed steel enterprises from 2011 to 2020，use the system GMM method to empirically study the causal relationship between environmental taxes, government subsidies and green technology innovation of steel enterprises and conduct a heterogeneity analysis, and draw the following conclusions:(1)Environmental protection taxes have a positive incentive effect on green technology innovation of steel enterprises. It also has the heterogeneity characteristics of economic development level， enterprise scale and property right nature. (2)Government subsidies can effectively improve the green technology innovation ability of iron and steel enterprises and play a positive role in the process of environmental tax affecting green technology innovation of iron and steel enterprises. (3) Under the background of environmental protection tax collection. First, iron and steel enterprises in economically developed regions are more inclined to adopt green technology innovation to cope with the cost pressure of environmental taxes than those in economically backward regions; Second, the environmental protection tax has a stronger positive incentive effect on green technology innovation of large-scale steel enterprises; Third, state-owned iron and steel enterprises are more inclined to adopt green technology innovation than non-state-owned iron and steel enterprises to link the cost burden of environmental taxes. Finally, taking improving the green tax system and effectively giving play to government functions as the starting point ， relevant policy recommendations are put forward:(1)implement regional differentiated environmental tax policy;(2)Perfect the system of earmarking environmental protection tax;(3) Make sure that government subsidies have a positive effect on green innovation;(4) Strengthen the policy coordination of "environmental tax+government subsidies".
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环境保护税、政府补助对钢铁行业绿色技术创新的影响研究.pdf
