Environmental Decentralization and Enterprise Productivity——Evidence from the"Environmental Data Direct Reporting from Key Supervi-sion Enterprises"Policy
Environmental decentralization refers to the exploration of power distribution issues in environmental affairs based on the principles of environmental federalism.Its essence lies in the allocation of environmental jurisdiction between the central government and local governments.As an important determinant of the effectiveness of environmental policy implementation,environmental decentralization is bound to have a profound impact on enterprise behaviors.However,scant attention has been devoted to studying the productivity implications of environmental decentralization in existing literature.The"environmental data direct reporting from national key supervision enterprises"policy is essentially a reform that adjusts the level of environmental decentralization.Regarding this policy as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper constructs a Difference-in-Differences model to examine its impact on enterprise productivity.Using data from listed enterprises on the A-share market from 2007 to 2019,this study calculates total factor productivity(TFP)of enterprises using different measurement methods.And,it employs the DID approach to analyze the extent and mechanisms through which exogenous changes in environmental decentralization affect micro-level enterprise productivity.The result shows that this policy significantly suppresses the TFP of nationally monitored key enterprises in the short term,confirming the negative impact of the decrease in environmental decentralization on enterprise productivity in the short term.A series of robustness checks confirm the robustness and credibility of this conclusion.This study theoretically explains the potential mechanisms through which the decline in environmental decentralization inhibits enterprise productivity.These mechanisms include reducing enterprises'research and development investments,constraining rent-seeking behaviors of enterprises,and incentivizing voluntary regulation of environmental behavior by enterprises.The empirical results also confirm the existence of these three mechanisms.Furthermore,this study conducts heterogeneity analyses from three levels:enterprise ownership,industry pollution intensity,and regional marketization level.It finds that the impact of this policy on enterprise productivity is more pronounced for state-owned enterprises,low-pollution industries,and regions with lower levels of marketization.The choice of the"environmental data direct reporting from national key supervision enterprises"policy as a metric for measuring exogenous changes in environmental decentralization is driven by several key reasons.First,this policy reflects the changes in the authority of the central government and the local governments to regulate the environment in the special field of environmental statistics.Despite being underexplored by scholars,this policy is a crucial focal point for its substantial impact on data quality and its pivotal role in the evolution of environmental regulation over decades.Second,the unique nature of this policy,distinct from other centralized policies,leverages big data science and technology to significantly reduce information search costs in environmental governance.This reduction is attributed to the streamlined process facilitated by cutting intermediary links,showcasing its adaptability to current technological trends and its role in diminishing environmental decentralization.In addition,state controlled enterprises are important polluters,but the existing literature has paid little attention to such enterprises.This article examines the relationship between the"National Control Source Environmental Data Reporting"policy andenterprise productivity,revealing how the level of environmental decentralization affects enterprise behaviors.It provides empirical evidence for the central government's allocation of environmental jurisdiction among different levels of government.By studying the contradictions between environmental protection and enterprise development,as well as the contradictions between the central government and local governments regarding the allocation of environmental jurisdiction,this research places them within the same framework,offering decision-making references for China to achieve high-quality economic development.
environmental decentralizationenvironmental policyenterprise productivityenvironmental governanceenvironmental statistical data
万方数据
