Does the greening of the tax system promote the green transformation of China’s heavily polluting enterprises?

Abstract

Climate change and pollution are the major environmental problems facing the world today. The emission of industrial pollution is not only related to the development of low carbon and green economy but also affects the ecological environment and climate change of human beings. The greening of the tax system is an important reform to help China's green development. From the perspective of internal green innovation and external legal pressure of heavily polluting enterprises, this paper discusses the impact mechanism of implementing the greening of the tax system on the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises in China and uses DID model to conduct a quasi-natural experiment on the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises in China. This paper finds that the implementation of the greening of the tax system has a significant impact on the green transformation of China's heavily polluting enterprises; the greening of the tax system policy realizes the "win-win" situation of green environmental governance and the development of heavily polluting enterprises through green technology innovation and forces heavily polluting enterprises in China to conduct environmental protection through the environmental legitimacy pressure. The effect of the greening of the tax system policy has obvious heterogeneity: The greening of the tax system has a more obvious improvement effect on heavily polluting enterprises with low and high market concentration. Compared with state-owned holding enterprises, non-state-owned holding enterprises are more significantly affected by the greening of the tax system. The positive impact of the greening of the tax system on the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises is mainly reflected in enterprises with low financing costs, while it is not significant in enterprises with high financing costs. This paper enriches the research on the effect of green tax policy, explores solutions based on quasi-nature, and provides policy references for the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises.