外资企业的环境溢出对内资企业污染排放强度的影响

在中国全面对外开放和可持续发展的背景下,本文从微观尺度探究了外资企业集聚的环境溢出效应。利用1999—2012年中国工业企业污染数据库和中国工业企业数据库,本文对比了外资和内资企业二氧化硫和化学需氧量排放强度的时空差异和演变过程,并建立计量模型探究外资企业的环境溢出效应及其作用途径。研究发现：① 在研究时段内,中国工业企业的二氧化硫和化学需氧量排放总量呈现逐渐下降的趋势,该现象来源于内资企业排放总量的下降,而外资企业的排放总量未发生明显变化。② 内资企业的二氧化硫和化学需氧量排放强度迅速下降,并逐渐接近外资企业的排放强度。中国内资企业二氧化硫和化学需氧量排放强度较低的区域主要分布在沿海经济发达的地区,而内陆地区的排放强度下降幅度较大。③ 实证结果表明,无论是产业内还是产业间,外资企业的地理集聚均能够显著降低内资企业的污染排放强度,但是产业内溢出的作用比产业间的溢出更显著。外资企业的环境溢出效应可以通过三条途径作用于内资企业,分别是劳动力流动、竞争效应和本地生产网络的嵌入。在本地生产网络的嵌入方面,后向效应能够产生环境溢出效应,而前向效应并不显著。从异质性分析来看,相对于高效率的企业,低效率的企业仅能够从劳动力流动或本地生产网络嵌入中获取环境溢出的外部性。

Effects of environmental spillover of foreign firm on pollution emission intensity of domestic firm

There is always a debate about the relationship between foreign direct investment and its domestic environmental outcome. The Pollution Haven Hypothesis argues that multinational firms in developed countries will relocate their dirty production to some developing countries to seek low compliance costs but the Pollution Halo Hypothesis emphasizes that multinational firms transfer their green knowledge and practice to the host country bringing favorable environmental benefits to domestic firms. This paper aims to examine the environmental spillover effects of foreign firms on domestic firms. Specifically, this paper compares the emissions intensity of SO₂ (sulfur dioxide) and COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) between foreign and domestic firms and their spatiotemporal evolution using matching data of pollution emissions and production from industrial firms in China between 1999 and 2012, and then, uses an econometric model to identify the environmental spillover effects of geographic agglomeration of foreign firms. The results show that: (1) during the study period, the total emissions of SO₂ and COD of Chinese industrial firms showed a gradual decline, mainly due to the reduction of the total emissions of domestic firms, while the total emissions of foreign firms did not change significantly. (2) During the study period, the SO₂ and COD emission intensity of domestic firms decreased rapidly and gradually caught up with that of foreign firms. Domestic firms with low emission intensity in China are mainly located in the coastal areas with a relatively high level of economic development; meanwhile the emission intensity of inland areas has experienced a rapid decline. (3) Empirically, for both within and between industries, the geographical agglomeration of foreign firms can significantly reduce the emission intensity of domestic firms, but the effect and significance of intra-industry spillovers are higher than that of inter-industry. The environmental spillovers of foreign firms can affect domestic firms through three channels: labor mobility, competition effect and the embedding effect of local production network. In terms of the embedding of local production network, empirical evidence shows that the backward link can show environmental spillover effects, while the forward link effect is not significant. In the heterogeneity analysis, compared with high-efficiency firms, low-efficiency firms can benefit from environmental spillover effects by labor mobility or embedding in foreign production network, but cannot obtain environmental spillovers from the competitive effects.