经济学院2020年发展经济学研讨会（二）

题目： How effective are Ecological Fiscal Transfers in China? Evidence from Payments for National Key Ecological Function Zones

汇报人： 龚长安 博士研究生

单位： 华中科技大学经济学院

举办单位：华中科技大学创新发展研究中心

时间： 2020年4月3日（周五）下午15：00

参与方式：Zoom会议号 654 925 6852

Abstract: Many environmental regulations have been formulated by the Chinese government, but they have often been ineffective. One kind of Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFT) instruments was introduced in China, namely Payments for National Key Ecological Function Zones (NKEFZs) policy. We provide principal-agent models for the incentive mechanism of NKEFZs policy and test the derived hypothesis empirically. Employing propensity score matching (PSM) and the difference in difference (DD) estimation to investigate the effectiveness of NKEFZs policy. We found evidence that the policy reduced pollution-intensive activity in the NKEFZs. Meanwhile, the implementation of the policy was selective. Firstly, the downstream NKEFZs with lower environmental quality among them, unfortunately, may form a vicious cycle for environmental protection. Because performance-based payments mechanism neglects cost opportunity, the financial stress lead to the Matthew effect. Secondly, local leaders ignore nontarget pollutants, as asymmetry information led to the moral hazards in environmental regulation.