{"title":"Environmental protection taxes and green productivity: Evidence from listed companies in China","authors":"Zhijun Yan , Yuting Jia , Bingbing Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.ecosys.2024.101213","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Enforcing an environmental protection tax<span><span> is a pivotal institutional measure for addressing environmental and climate change challenges and marking a substantial advancement in ecological development. This study aims to explore the influence of environmental protection taxes on the \"green\" productivity of the manufacturing industry<span> through an analysis of Chinese listed companies. Initially, the Dynamic Slacks-Based Measure (DSBM) method is employed to estimate the \"green\" production efficiency levels of 175 listed companies in China from 2016 to 2020. Subsequently, by aligning pollution tax standards issued by local governments and relevant environmental protection departments with microlevel data from the CSMAR database, wind database, listed company annual reports, and social responsibility reports, the sample was refined to 833 data points. Using the implementation of the environmental protection tax policy in 2018 as a natural experiment, a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model is applied for empirical testing. The empirical results reveal a counterintuitive negative correlation between the environmental protection tax and the \"green\" productivity of companies, contradicting the predictions of the Porter hypothesis. This suggests that stringent environmental regulations hinder the development of green technologies. The adverse impact of environmental protection taxes on \"green\" productivity is attributed to heightened environmental legitimacy pressures and increasing environmental uncertainty risks companies face. Further </span></span>exploratory analysis<span> indicated that the digital economy and green finance<span> have a positive moderating effect, significantly mitigating the negative impact of environmental protection taxes on companies' overall \"green\" productivity. Consequently, dynamically optimizing environmental tax policies is imperative to alleviate companies' environmental legitimacy pressures and uncertainty risks. Additionally, capitalizing on the opportunities the digital economy presents and leveraging green finance policies have emerged as effective strategies for realizing the Porter effect of environmental protection taxes.</span></span></span></div></div>","PeriodicalId":51505,"journal":{"name":"Economic Systems","volume":"48 4","pages":"Article 101213"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economic Systems","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939362524000359","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Enforcing an environmental protection tax is a pivotal institutional measure for addressing environmental and climate change challenges and marking a substantial advancement in ecological development. This study aims to explore the influence of environmental protection taxes on the "green" productivity of the manufacturing industry through an analysis of Chinese listed companies. Initially, the Dynamic Slacks-Based Measure (DSBM) method is employed to estimate the "green" production efficiency levels of 175 listed companies in China from 2016 to 2020. Subsequently, by aligning pollution tax standards issued by local governments and relevant environmental protection departments with microlevel data from the CSMAR database, wind database, listed company annual reports, and social responsibility reports, the sample was refined to 833 data points. Using the implementation of the environmental protection tax policy in 2018 as a natural experiment, a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model is applied for empirical testing. The empirical results reveal a counterintuitive negative correlation between the environmental protection tax and the "green" productivity of companies, contradicting the predictions of the Porter hypothesis. This suggests that stringent environmental regulations hinder the development of green technologies. The adverse impact of environmental protection taxes on "green" productivity is attributed to heightened environmental legitimacy pressures and increasing environmental uncertainty risks companies face. Further exploratory analysis indicated that the digital economy and green finance have a positive moderating effect, significantly mitigating the negative impact of environmental protection taxes on companies' overall "green" productivity. Consequently, dynamically optimizing environmental tax policies is imperative to alleviate companies' environmental legitimacy pressures and uncertainty risks. Additionally, capitalizing on the opportunities the digital economy presents and leveraging green finance policies have emerged as effective strategies for realizing the Porter effect of environmental protection taxes.
期刊介绍：
Economic Systems is a refereed journal for the analysis of causes and consequences of the significant institutional variety prevailing among developed, developing, and emerging economies, as well as attempts at and proposals for their reform. The journal is open to micro and macro contributions, theoretical as well as empirical, the latter to analyze related topics against the background of country or region-specific experiences. In this respect, Economic Systems retains its long standing interest in the emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe and other former transition economies, but also encourages contributions that cover any part of the world, including Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, or Africa.
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