关键词: 排污费, 企业创新, 波特假说, 环保税

Abstract: Considering that the first environmental protection tax levied in China in 2018 was restructured from original discharge fees, we take the adjustment of the SO2 pollutant discharge fee standard in all provincial governments after the promulgation of the document Guofa 2007(15) as a “quasi-natural experiment”, and take the listed companies in the heavily polluting industries in Shenzhen and Shanghai stock markets from 2005 to 2014 as the research sample. We use the DID method to study the enterprise innovation effect of the increase of SO2 discharge fee standard and based on it discuss the related implications for environmental tax policy. The results show that the improvement of the standard of pollutant discharge fee, in general, suppressed the technological innovation of enterprises. However, when the amount of environmental protection tax is increased to a certain level, the collection of environmental protection tax can promote technological innovation of enterprises. The enlightenment to China’ s environmental protection tax reform lies in the need to further improve the current environmental protection tax rate and introduce the corresponding supporting policies. This paper effectively treats the endogenous problem between environmental regulation intensity and enterprise innovation through exogenous policy impact and DID model. The research conclusion is of policy guidance for the further improvement of China’ s environmental protection tax, which is restructured from the original pollutant discharge fee.

Key words: Sewage Charges, Enterprise Innovation, Porter Hypothesis, Environmental Protection Tax