Environmental protection fee-to-tax and enterprise investment efficiency: Evidence from China

Abstract

This study takes an environmental protection tax as its research background and uses the difference-in-differences method to study the effect of environmental taxes on the investment efficiency of enterprises. The results show that the implementation of environmental taxes significantly reduces the investment efficiency of enterprises. Further evidence shows that the negative effect of environmental taxes on investment efficiency is partly due to a blind increase in the scale of green investment after the policy is implemented and partly because the overall efficiency of green investment is low. Heterogeneity test results show that there are significant differences in the effect of the implementation of environmental taxes policy on the enterprises with various firm ownership characteristics, geographical locations and enterprise sizes. The conclusions of this study provide a basis for China to achieve the goal of carbon emissions peaking and carbon neutrality, and also provide theoretical guidance for other countries.