Ефективність діяльності екологічних інспекцій в Україні та її вплив на фінансове забезпечення раціонального природокористування

Abstract

The activities of ecological inspections are designed to serve as a regulator to ensure compliance with ecological standards by business entities and reduce the level of pollution. On the basis of this goal of functioning of ecological inspections, the purpose of the study has been formed, which is to confirm or refute the hypothesis that the efficiency of ecological inspections has a direct impact on the level of financing of measures related to the rational use of nature. Thus, to begin with, an analysis of modern foreign literature on related topics was carried out, which made it possible to confirm the relevance of our study, at the same time it was based on the absence of similar domestic developments. The further research was also based on the collection and processing of official data on the results of ecological inspections, the amount of ecological tax revenues and the financing of ecological protection measures. Using the collected data, a panel-regression analysis was carried out (based on Stata software). The assessment of the impact of ecological inspections on the financial support of rational use of natural resources was carried out in two stages. As a result of the first stage of the study (assessment of the impact of ecological inspections’ activities on ecological tax revenues), a partial statistical significance between the effective and factor variables was revealed. Thus, the activities of the ecological inspections can influence the filling of the budget in terms of the ecological tax, but such influence is insignificant in monetary terms, and this, in turn, hinders the implementation of all its functions by the ecological tax. As a result of the second stage of the study, which consisted in assessing the impact of ecological inspections on the financing of ecological protection measures, it was determined that the previously put forward hypothesis was partially confirmed. Proceeding from this, the second hypothesis was formed, the essence of which was that the relative indicators of efficiency of ecological inspections have a direct impact on the amount of ecological revenues and financing of ecological initiatives. This made it possible to confirm that the effectiveness of ecological inspections in some aspects has a direct impact on the amount of ecological tax revenues. Although, in general, the second hypothesis can be considered neither refuted nor confirmed, the results obtained can become the basis for further empirical research in this direction.