Do vertical ecological compensation policies promote green economic development: A case study of the transfer payments policy for China’s National Key Ecological Function Zones

IF 2.8 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economic Systems Pub Date : 2023-12-01 DOI:10.1016/j.ecosys.2023.101125

Qiuyue Yang

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

The transfer payment policy for National Key Ecological Function Zones is a typical vertical ecological compensation (VEC) policy that has been in place in China since 2008. This study treats this VEC policy as a quasi-natural experiment and utilises a slack-based measure model to calculate each county’s green economic efficiency based on China’s county-level data for the period 2003–2020. Then, the difference-in-differences method is used to evaluate the impact of the VEC policy on green economic efficiency and to verify its possible mechanisms. The results indicate that the VEC policy significantly improves the green economic efficiency of compensated areas, demonstrating that this policy promotes regional green economic development. Moreover, we find that the VEC policy may improve green economic efficiency by reducing the pollution caused by industrial development, promoting eco-industrial development and accelerating technological innovation. From the perspective of realising its three policy goals, the VEC policy not only improves the compensated areas’ ecological environment quality, but also promotes economic growth and optimises public services in the compensated areas. Furthermore, an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between the scale of VEC and green economic efficiency is identified.

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垂直生态补偿政策促进绿色经济发展——以中国国家重点生态功能区转移支付政策为例

国家重点生态功能区转移支付政策是中国自 2008 年开始实施的一项典型的纵向生态补偿（VEC）政策。本研究将这一垂直生态补偿政策视为准自然实验，利用基于松弛的计量模型，基于 2003-2020 年中国县级数据计算各县的绿色经济效率。然后，利用差分法评估了自愿减排政策对绿色经济效率的影响，并验证了其可能的作用机制。结果表明，自愿减排政策显著提高了补偿地区的绿色经济效率，表明该政策促进了区域绿色经济发展。此外，我们还发现自愿减排政策可以通过减少工业发展带来的污染、促进生态工业发展和加快技术创新来提高绿色经济效率。从实现三大政策目标的角度来看，脆弱性和经济性政策不仅能改善补偿地区的生态环境质量，还能促进补偿地区的经济增长和优化公共服务。此外，还发现脆弱性和经济性政策规模与绿色经济效益之间存在倒 U 型曲线关系。

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来源期刊

Economic Systems ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

4.90

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

48 days

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.