Spatial threshold effect of tax competition on carbon dioxide emissions intensity in China

作者：Xiamin Fan, Heliang Huang, Kunming Li, Chia‐Hsun Chang, Wenming Shi · 发表于：Climate Policy · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1080/14693062.2022.2137098 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Energy, Environment, Economic Growth、Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth、Climate Change Policy and Economics

Tax policymaking in China has created conditions for local governments to strategically leverage tax policies (e.g. tax preferences, tax collection and management efficiency, and fiscal subsidies) to have carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. By constructing an endogenous growth model with tax competition, capital mobility, technological innovation, and carbon emissions, this study investigates how tax competition is influencing firm-level behaviour and providing climate-relevant policy implications. It has theoretically demonstrated that this effect depends on technological innovation and operates through the capital mechanism. This finding is empirically confirmed in this analysis using a spatial panel threshold model with fixed effects designed to fit a balanced provincial panel dataset in China over the period 2005–2018. The main results are fourfold. First, provinces with similar carbon emissions intensity (CEI) tend to cluster spatially. That is, a province with a high CEI usually has neighbours with high CEIs. Second, a threshold effect is confirmed, revealing that higher tax collection and management efficiency (lower tax competition) decreases CEI if technological innovation is below the threshold value; otherwise, lower tax competition usually increases CEI. Third, capital mobility is a potential mechanism through which tax competition influences CEI. Specifically, provinces with a high level of technological innovation a...