Resource Tax Reform Research Articles

A Domino Effect of Firm CSR Across Multi-Stakeholders: Evidence from China’s Resource Tax Reform

A Domino Effect of Firm CSR Across Multi-Stakeholders: Evidence from China’s Resource Tax Reform

Effectiveness evaluation of China's water resource tax reform pilot and path optimization from the perspective of policy field.

The water resource tax reform played an important role in promoting sustainable development in China. Subsequent to the seven-year reform, the effectiveness evaluation of the policy in each pilot area and the exploration of the optimization path directly affected the promotion of water resource tax policy and the improvement of water use efficiency. Therefore, the theoretical framework of the water resource tax policy field was constructed to examine the mechanism of the three subsystems of policy scenario, policy orientation, and policy effect; fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was then used to evaluate and quantitatively compare the policy implementation effect and policy path in each pilot area, with emphasis put on three policy orientations, i.e., the decision and decomposition effect of policy goals, the selection and im plementation effect of policy tools, and the policy supervision and security effect. As shown by the research results: ① the water resource tax reform had effectively improved the efficiency of water resource utilization in the pilot areas; ② three pilot models of water resource tax policy had been extracted, namely the policy goal and tool-driven model centering on a single dimension of the policy field, the implementation-supervision dual drive model emphasizing the supervision and security effect of the policy, and the three-dimensional policy orientation linkage model that focused on the synergistic effect of the policy field; ③ strong heterogeneity existed in water resource tax policy implementation paths and effects in each pilot area. Accordingly, regional heterogeneity could be considered in the process of reform to construct institutionalized, precise, and differentiated reform implementation methods from the perspective of the policy field.

Ripples of change: Assessing the impact of water resource tax reform pilot on the green growth of China's coastal cities

Coastal cities, despite being close to expansive oceans, are still susceptible to water constraints. The water resource tax reform pilot has been instrumental in promoting water conservation and effective utilization, so contributing significantly to the green growth of the coastal cities where it has been implemented. Utilizing data from prefecture-level cities in China's coastal areas from 2007 to 2019 and adopting the Green Total Factor Productivity as a measure of green growth, this study is dedicated to exploring the impact of water resources tax reform on the green growth of coastal cities. It treats the water resource tax reform pilot as a quasi-natural experiment and utilizes multi-period DID and PSM-DID methodologies to examine the effects of this reform on Green Total Factor Productivity. The findings indicate that the water resource tax reform pilot has made a significant contribution to green growth, primarily by reducing water consumption and enhancing governmental focus on marine environmental regulation. Expanding upon these findings, the article provides suggestions in several domains like the establishment of distinct tax rates, allocation of tax money, government oversight, and implementation of taxes on agricultural water resources. These findings can serve as a scientific benchmark for the development and execution of water resource tax policies in other areas.

Does the Water Resource Tax Reform Bring Positive Effects to Green Innovation and Productivity in High Water-Consuming Enterprises?

Water resources are a fundamental natural and strategic economic resource and are closely related to high-quality economic and societal development. This paper uses the pilot implementation of the water resource tax reform to explore the impact of that reform on the green innovation and total factor productivity of enterprises. The study sample includes data for high water-consuming A-share listed enterprises in Shenzhen and Shanghai, China, from 2007 to 2021; the double-difference method was used for the analysis. Study findings indicate that replacing water resource fees with taxes significantly improves the green innovation level and total factor productivity of enterprises. Green innovation has a significant partial mediating effect between the water resource tax reform and total factor productivity. The water resource tax reform promotes green innovation in enterprises, enhancing total factor productivity. When considering different types of enterprise property rights, the economic effect of the water resource tax reform is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, compared to state-owned enterprises. This paper provides empirical evidence for expanding the pilot scope of the water resource tax reform.

The Impact of Water Resource Tax Reform on Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from Chinese A-Share Listed Enterprises

The Impact of Water Resource Tax Reform on Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from Chinese A-Share Listed Enterprises

The impacts and instruments of energy transition regulations on environmental pollution

This study examines the influence of energy transition regulations on environmental pollution, exploring both the impact and instruments employed in regulatory frameworks. Focusing on the global shift towards cleaner energy sources, the research evaluates the effectiveness of regulations in reducing pollution levels. Through a concise analysis of literature and regulatory mechanisms, the study highlights the dual role of regulations as both mitigators of environmental harm and potential sources of unintended consequences. Over the past 17 years, there has been a notable and consistent reduction in average environmental pollution levels, indicating positive trends in environmental quality. The average environmental pollution decreased significantly from 0.0135 in 2005 to 0.0045 in 2021. The energy transition regulation (coal resource tax reform) proves to be effective in reducing environmental pollution. In detail, the energy transition regulation can effectively reduce environmental pollution in the western region, while it has no significant impact on environmental pollution in the eastern and central regions. The optimization of industrial structure, innovation level, and fiscal surplus are crucial pathways through which energy transition regulation inhibits environmental pollution. We provide a brief overview of the study's contribution to understanding the dynamic relationship between energy transition policies and environmental sustainability.

The Impact of Water Resource Tax on the Sustainable Development in Water-Intensive Industries: Evidence from Listed Companies

China is taking measures to minimize the negative impact of the long-term extensive water use model on the water environment. The large number of zombie enterprises with high energy consumption and low energy efficiency in highly water-consuming industries is one of the important reasons for the water resource governance plight of China. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of water resource tax reform from 2016 to 2020, this paper uses the panel data of listed companies to quantify the impact of water resource tax on the zombification of high water consumption enterprises in this paper. The results show that the zombie degree of high water consumption enterprises after the implementation of the water resource fee to tax reform has become significantly higher, and this conclusion remains stable after a series of tests. The conclusion of this paper has major implications regarding sustainably developing zombie enterprises and highly water-consuming industries in terms of policy.

Will resource tax reform raise green total factor productivity levels in cities? Evidence from 114 resource-based cities in China

One of the new development concept is to enhance Green Total Factor Productivity (GTFP). Based on examining the theoretical basis of how resource tax reform affects GTFP, a natural experiment was used to empirically assess how the reform of resource taxes affects the GTFP. Our findings reveal a significant increase in GTFP following resource tax reform. The main contribution of this article lies in constructing a multi-time point difference-in-differences model, which enables clarification of the impact of resource tax reform on GTFP from the perspective of various resource taxes. Then we deduce that resource tax reform enhance GTFP levels by encouraging the transformation of resource-based cities into modern industrialized cities and reducing dependence on resource sectors. However, it is worth noting that resource tax reform may slow down economic growth and investment in scientific and technological innovation in cities heavily reliant on natural resources. In addition, resource tax reform promotes technological advancement through industrial upgrading, albeit with an adverse effect on technical efficiency. This observation implies that resource tax reform should be harmonized with all aspects of urban development. This research offers valuable policy insights on how to develop scientific and reasonable resource tax policies to improve economic development and environmental protection in an environmentally responsible manner.

What is the role of resource tax in sustainable development? A firm-level analysis for China.

While previous studies have recognized the importance of resource tax in environmental governance, we know relatively little about whether resource tax can get a win-win both in corporate financial performance (CFP) and corporate environmental performance (CEP). Using China's resource tax reform (RTR) policy in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment and adopting a difference-in-differences (DID) strategy, we estimate the real effect of resource tax on CFP and CEP. The results show that RTR increases the financial performance of the regulated firms by 32.26% and the environmental performance by 46.15% compared to the non-regulated firms, indicating that resource tax can promote firms' sustainable development. Mechanism analysis shows that the effect of resource tax is mainly driven by firms' technological innovation and productivity improvement. Moreover, we further find that RTR performs better for firms with weaker tax burden-shifting ability and firms located in areas with poorer resource endowments. Overall, our study not only provides evidence for the Porter hypothesis from the perspective of resource tax, but also offers important policy implications for developing countries in their pursuit of sustainable economic and environmental development.

The impact of water resource taxes on total factor water efficiency

Abstract Widespread promotion of resource tax reform is of critical importance in China's efforts to promote resource conservation and speed up the development of a more ecological planet. Using the Differences-in-Differences (DID) approach, this article empirically assesses the impact of water resource tax reform on total factor water efficiency and its mechanism of action in order to examine the effect of China's water resource tax reform policy from 2010 to 2019. According to the study, water resource tax reform enhances total factor water efficiency substantially. Following a battery of robustness tests, this conclusion remains valid. Further examination of the policy's mechanism finds that it encourages increases in total factor water efficiency through increasing marketization, enhancing innovation capabilities, supporting industrial structure upgrades, and strengthening the intensity of environmental regulations. The research in this article provides a basis for decision-making and so further promotes the pilot policy of water resource tax reform across the country.

The examination of resource tax reform facilitating firms’ green innovation in resource-related industry in China

The impact of resource tax reform on green innovation in resource related industry at micro-firm level is still unknown. By matching data from resource-associated firms in China's A-share market with green patent database from State Intellectual Property Office from 2000 to 2017, and applying Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and difference-in-difference (DID), the research results demonstrate that resource tax reform significantly facilitates firms' green innovation in resource industry and executive compensation intensifies the promoting effect. Further study reveals enterprise profitability works as an intermediary enhancing effect. Our findings on some degree coincide the literature like emissions trading scheme promoting green innovation, which emphasizes ex post or from emission consequences. In contrast, this paper focuses on levying resource tax that is limited to mineral resource-related firms and at the source of resource exploitation, and treats micro-firms as the main body of research unlike existing literature at macro level. More importantly, this paper combines GMM-DID models to solve endogeneity problem. Furthermore, this paper explores the mediating and moderating effects by corporate profitability and executive compensation, which have been neglected by the literature.

Tax Policies of Low Carbon in China: Effectiveness Evaluation, System Design and Prospects

Fiscal and taxation policy tools play an important role in promoting green and low-carbon development. Based on classical tax theory, including the Potter hypothesis and the environmental Kuznets curve, this paper explores the impact of environmental tax regulation on economic growth and carbon emission reduction. We find that resource tax reform could promote green total factor productivity; however, the ad valorem reform of resource tax does not significantly raise the level of low carbon development. This effect varies among different regions as well as different tax cuts and fee reductions. Fiscal revenue decentralization has a reverse adjustment effect on the impact of resource taxes on green total factor productivity. We conclude that it is necessary to deepen the reform of the fiscal and taxation system to achieve the carbon neutrality and emission peak goal.

Goals on the road: institutional innovations in carbon peak and carbon neutrality

ABSTRACT A low-carbon economy is not only vital to human survival but also to national energy security. The dual goals of carbon emission include those of a carbon peak and carbon neutrality, which are necessary for realizing new development patterns and promoting high-quality development in China. This study is focused on the innovation mechanism as applied to the dual goals of carbon emission, and two issues are considered – the overall carbon peak and carbon neutrality situation from resource tax and power reform perspective and the construction of a long-term mechanism to address environmental threats, such as smog. The continuous use of endogenous mechanisms to regulate the production and consumption behaviors of enterprises and people, as well as the means by which China may fully use its economic power to promote green, low-carbon, sustainable development are emphasized and analyzed.

Can resource policy adjustments effectively curb regional “resource curse” ? new evidences from the “energy golden triangle area” of China

When resource endowment supports regional economic growth, it also induces regional “resource curse”. However, few studies have fully considered the impact of resource policy adjustments on avoiding the “resource curse” in energy concentration area. In this paper, we appraise the impacts on regional “resource curse” in the “Energy Golden Triangle area” of China by resource policy adjustment by an improved dynamic CGE model with cleaning sector and non-cleaning sector. Meanwhile, coal resource tax reform is adopted to be as a representative resource and environment policy adjustment. The results show that: 1) coal resource tax reform has a significant inhibitory effect in the total outputs. 2) coal resource tax reform has a positive influence on GDP and crowds out energy resources from the non-clean sector to clean sector. 3) Local taxation in the “Energy Golden Triangle area” of China has increased greatly by reform.4) Coal resource tax reform has curbed the regional “resource curse” in the “Energy Golden Triangle area” of China to a certain extent,but a huge regional difference exists. 5) Coal resource tax reform can effectively suppress energy consumption and reduce emissions of major pollutants in the “Energy Golden Triangle area” of China.

Research on Key Technologies of Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction in the New Era

The adjustment of coal energy resource tax is an important price control method to realize energy saving and emission reduction and promote low-carbon economy. The global financial crisis and my country’s economic recovery provide a favourable opportunity for coal resource tax adjustment. Combining the current background of the new era of energy conservation and emission reduction, the paper builds a China Energy CGE model based on the actual situation in China, and calculates the impact of ad valorem tax rates on different coal resources. The results of the study found that the coal resource tax reform has a weak negative impact on the economy. Considering the tax return scenario, it cannot only offset the impact, but also drive a small increase in GDP; the coal resource tax reform will not push up the CPI, deregulate electricity prices, and considering the tax rebate has a more obvious restraining effect on prices; the coal resource tax reform is conducive to improving the structure of domestic demand. Similarly, considering the tax rebate scenario, the effect is more obvious. Coal resource tax reform can reduce the output of high-energy-consuming industries, which is conducive to energy conservation and emission reduction.

Water Resource Tax Reform to Build Resource-saving Society

Xu, Q., 2020. Water resource tax reform to build resource-saving society. In: Bai, X. and Zhou, H. (eds.), Advances in Water Resources, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 115, pp. 506-509. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Water resource tax reform constitutes an important part of the reform of the ecological civilization system and mechanism. Due to the basic and strategic nature of water resources, water resource tax system not only decides the success or failure of ecological civilization construction, but also plays a decisive role in high-quality economic growth and regional balanced development of China. This paper analyzes the unique characteristics of water resource tax and the green effects of its reform. It then learns from advanced foreign experience and offset weakness based on domestic reality, proposes the main ideas for improving our country's water resource tax system at the national level to enhance our country's ability to build a resource-saving society.

Socio-economic and environmental impacts of the iron ore resource tax reform in China: A CGE-based analysis

With the acceleration of the resource tax reform in China, the ad valorem tax reform of the iron ore resource tax has become a hot topic. It is important to consider how to effectively play the regulating effect of China's iron ore resource tax so as to achieve iron ore industry's sustainable development through circular economy. However, no analyses of the proposed ad valorem tax reform have thus far been conducted. To bridge this gap in the literature, we adopt a computable general equilibrium model to simulate the socio-economic and environmental impacts of different iron ore resource tax reforms from an economy-wide perspective. The results show that this reform has had a limited influence on reducing the tax burden in the iron ore industry. However, we find that adopting a 1% ad valorem tax rate would enhance the competitiveness of domestic iron ore enterprises and reduce dependence on iron ore imports. In addition, if the resource tax is halved or a 1% ad valorem tax rate in implemented, GDP and household welfare would both rise; however, a 3% or 6% ad valorem tax rate would have a negative impact on GDP and household welfare. Finally, a lower (higher) ad valorem tax rate would increase (decrease) carbon dioxide emissions and carbon intensity. However, if a carbon tax policy was adopted under the low ad valorem tax rate policy, the disadvantageous environmental impact could be significantly improved and the tax burden of iron ore enterprises would also fall. Our research results suggest the following policy implications. First, given the core objectives of the iron ore resource tax reform and socio-economic impact, a lower iron ore resource tax rate should be introduced. Second, a carbon tax should be introduced and the indirect tax rate reduced by the same number of percentage points to ameliorate the possible negative environmental impacts of the reform.

How does tax system on energy industries affect energy demand, CO2 emissions, and economy in China?

Energy savings and CO2 emission reduction have become a major issue in recent years. Taxes on energy production sectors may be an effective way to save energy, reduce CO2 emissions, and improve environmental quality. This paper constructs a dynamic recursive Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze the impact of the energy tax on energy, economy, and environment from the perspective of tax rates and tax forms (specific tax and ad valorem tax). The results show that adjusting the tax system and the tax rate has important implications for energy conservation while having minor impacts on the output of other industries. The impact of an increasing energy tax on the energy demand is greater than the impact on sectoral output, indicating that energy efficiency will be increased to some extent. The CO2 reduction will increase over time when an ad valorem tax is implemented on enterprises. We found that ad valorem tax has greater elasticity of economic output, energy demand, and CO2 emission reduction. The results support the direction of China's resource tax reform. However, we argue that it is better to increase the tax rate relatively and relax the control on energy prices so that energy efficiency will increase.

Researches on Optimal Tax Rate and Its Effect of Copper Mine Resource Tax in China

As an important natural resource, mineral resources are indispensable necessities for human’s social existence and economic development. As China’s industrialization process continues to gradually increase, conflicts about resource constraint and ecological pressure resulting from economic and social development are increasingly evident. Key problems of how to guarantee the security of national mineral resources supply, ease the contradiction of resource constraint, and reduce ecological pressure are significant current challenges in China. The Chinese government has successively implemented new types of resource taxes including valorem and free fee and regulate reform for oil, natural gas, and coal resources in an attempt to adjust differential income needs and protect resources. Given these efforts, there have also been strategies to reform policies for the use and taxation of non-ferrous metal resources. In 2016, the Chinese Ministry of Finance and the State Council jointly issued a government document to comprehensively promote the reform of resource tax policy. This document also set the standards of tax rate for seven metal minerals. Copper is one of the regulated minerals, and the tax rate range of copper mine was set as 2% to 8%, dependent on the conditions of different provinces. We constructed a resource computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to investigate the optimal tax rate of copper resource under ad valorem duty in China. The results showed that the best tax rate is 4%. Based on this optimal rate, a dynamic CGE model was built to analyze and dynamically forecast the macroeconomic impact of different tax rates, providing insight into the best strategy to enable cost control for enterprises and efficient and effective policymaking by the government. Because comprehensive resource tax reform remains in the exploratory stage, the results of this study will provide a reference for the future optimization of the copper mine resource tax rate.

The impacts on CO2 emission reduction and haze by coal resource tax reform based on dynamic CGE model

The paper builds a dynamic computable general equilibrium model (Dynamic CGE Model) to evaluate the impact on carbon emissions reduction and haze with different scenarios of coal resource tax rate adjustment. The results shows that: Overall speaking, coal resource tax reform can be conducive to promote CO2 emission reduction and environmental benefits from a longer time rang, but the impacts are different with the three kinds of policy design which are 2%,5% and 10% respectively. Increased coal resources tax inhibits resources consumption, improves resource utilization efficiency, and reduces haze emission; meanwhile, the implementation of resource value compensation policy plays a more positive role in improving the environment quality. Compared with the impact by 2% and 10% tax rate, 5% Ad valorem tax should be a reasonable and effective choice for decreasing CO2 emission and PM2.5&PM10, and improving environment welfare. Therefore, some suggestions are given as following: 1) it is necessary to choose coal resource tax rate properly and scientifically. 2) Integrating the policy of resource compensation into the category of resource tax, and further clarify the form of resource compensation standards. 3) Paying more attention to the coordination of resources policy; 4) important mineral resources, forest resources should be incorporated into the resource tax policy.