排污税能够提高环境质量吗

排污收费制度是我国主要的环境政策工具之一。然而,自1982年这一制度正式建立实施以来,经过2003年的制度改良,始终未能解决征收成本高、使用效率低、寻租行为盛行的问题,这一系列的问题导致该制度的减排效果不佳。因此,近年来,排污费改排污税的改革提上议事日程。这一改革是否能够收到设计者们预期的效果?为从理论上回答这些问题,从中国现实出发,借鉴环境库兹涅茨曲线的研究方法,通过设计一个包含政府征收排污税行为和政府污染治理技术投资行为的经济系统,考察动态条件下排污税对环境质量的长期影响,以及征收排污税对厂商行为和消费者行为的长期影响。根据本文的分析,单一的征收排污税并不一定能够改善环境质量,不一定能够促进环境库兹涅茨曲线拐点的出现,也不能减少企业污染物排放;同时,排污税降低了资本积累速度和经济增长速度,但对消费者消费路径的影响是不明确的。最后,本文建议,政府应投资于污染治理技术的改进能够持续的减少最终污染物排放,达到改善环境质量的目的。

Can Pollution Tax Improve Environmental Quality?

Pollution fee is one of the main environmental policy instruments of China.However,since it was established in 1982 and reformed in 2003,the issues of high levy cost,inefficient use and rent-seeking behavior have not yet been resolved,leading to the poor efficiency of abatement.Therefore,the reform of pollution tax is under discussion.Will pollution tax work as the designers expect? To answer this question theoretically,the environmental Kuznets approach is employed to study the long-run effect of levying pollution tax on the improvement of environment,firm’s behavior and consumer’s behavior by designing an economic system including government levying pollution tax and investing in anti-pollution technology.Based on the analysis,we find that merely depending on the levying of pollution tax would not necessarily improve environment quality,would not definitely lead to the appearance of inflection point of environmental Kuznets curve,nor would it result in the reduction of pollutant emission.Meanwhile,pollution tax decreases capital accumulation and economic growth while the influence of consumption path is ambiguous.Finally,we suggest that the efficient way to curb pollutant emission should be the government should improve the anti-pollution technology they have invested in.