Multidimensional Utility Function and Environmental Protection Expenditure of Local Government under"Fiscal Decentralization"
Local governments'environmental spending preferences are derived from the fiscal decentralization structure in China,and therefore restricted by multiple factors such as superior guidance,competition at the same level,and own financial resources.However,the existing lit-eratures rarely discuss the multi-dimensional utility function of local government under the frame-work of fiscal decentralization and the resulting characteristics on its environmental protection ex-penditure preference.Combined with theoretical model derivation and empirical test covering the panel data of 247 prefecture-level cities from 2012 to 2019,this paper makes an all-round diagno-sis of the multiple driving mechanism of local government environmental protection expenditure under the framework of fiscal decentralization,and finds that:Superior policy guidance will en-courage local governments to spend on environmental protection,but economic competition at the same level and their own financial constraints will restrict their environmental protection spending behavior;There is an obvious interaction effect between multi-dimensional constraints.Economic competition at the same level and policy guidance from the higher level have an obvious reverse hedging effect on local governments'environmental protection spending preferences,while own financial constraints will affect local governments'trade-offs between superior guidance and com-petitive pressure at the same level:Financial constraints of local governments will affect their en-vironmental spending preferences through two different transmission mechanisms:upward fiscal dependence and internal fiscal expenditure shifting.Therefore,the construction of a comprehen-sive plan compatible with the multi-dimensional objectives of local governments,the creation of a dynamic collaborative mechanism of"examination and competition",and the design of a differen-tiated path to adapt to local financial constraints are the key to effectively solve the problem of lo-cal government environmental protection spending incentives.
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