生态环境治理过程中面临着经济发展、公共服务供给与环境保护之间的"矛盾",这是困扰经济社会可持续发展的重要难题。本文以生态功能区制度和生态转移支付制度为例,构建了一个简单的理论分析模型,讨论了在环境保护目标下,地方政府在面临经济激励和政治激励后的行为反应及其策略选择。本文利用2003～2014年全国县级面板数据,识别了两类制度安排对生态环境、经济发展和公共服务的影响及其差异,关注了背后的激励扭曲效应。实证结果发现:(1)生态功能区制度和生态转移支付制度的实施在一定程度上改善环境质量,提升了地方政府生态治理的努力程度,但是改善程度和努力程度呈现出递减和弱化趋势;(2)两类制度所带来的环境改善是以弱化发展(工业发展)激励为前提的,但是也带来了财政收入下降、财政支出上升、收支缺口扩大,公共服务水平相对下降;(3)在生态功能区县(市)或享受生态转移支付的县(市)中,财政收支缺口越大时,生态县(市)发展工业的激励越强,工业发展水平越高时,公共服务水平相对更高,但带来了环境污染加剧,这是激励扭曲一种表现;(4)生态功能区制度政治激励不足所产生的扭曲效应显著高于转移支付制度,其与绿色晋升激励不足(缺失)有关。在绿色发展转型的过程中,地方政府行为会因制度安排不全和激励不足产生扭曲,当现有制度安排无法有效弥补县(市)因保护生态环境而放弃经济发展的机会成本时,地方政府为了保障机构运转和公共服务需要,则会通过发展一定规模的工业来弥补公共服务成本,进而影响了生态环境治理效果,政治激励不足会进一步加剧这种扭曲效应。提高均衡性转移支付公式中的生态因素权重,适当扩大生态功能区专项转移支付规模,设置差异化生态绩效考核梯度,建立和推行绿色晋升机制,对解决激励扭曲效应和持续提升生态环境质量具有重要意义。

In the process of ecological environment governance, the contradiction between economic development, public service supply and environmental protection is an important problem that plagued the sustainable development of the economy and society. This paper takes the ecological function area system and ecological transfer payment system as examples to construct a simple theoretical analysis model and discusses the behavioral responses and tactical choices of the local government after facing economic incentives and political incentives under the goal of environmental protection. Using county-level panel data from 2003 to 2014 in the country, the impact of the two types of institutional arrangements on the ecological environment, economic development and public services and their differences were identified, and the incentive distortion effect behind them was noted. The empirical results show that:(1) The implementation of the ecological function area system and the ecological transfer payment system improves the quality of the environment to a certain extent, and enhances the efforts of the local government in ecological governance, but the degree of improvement and effort show a decreasing and weakening trend;(2) The environmental improvement brought about by the two types of systems is based on the premise of weakening the development(industrial development) incentives, but it also brings about a decline in fiscal revenue, rising fiscal expenditures, an increase in income and expenditure gaps, and a relative decline in public service levels;(3) In counties of ecological function districts or those enjoying ecological transfer payments, the greater the gap between fiscal revenues and expenditures, the stronger the incentive for the development of industries in ecological counties and cities, and the higher the level of industrial development, the higher the level of public services. Environmental pollution has been relatively intensified, which is a manifestation of incentive distortions;(4) The distorting effect of the lack of political incentives in the ecological function area system is significantly higher than the transfer payment system, which is related to the lack of incentives in the green promotion. In the process of green development and transformation, local government behavior will be distorted due to incomplete institutional arrangements and inadequate incentives. When the existing institutional arrangements cannot effectively compensate for the opportunity costs of preserving the ecological environment and abandoning economic development in counties and cities, in order to ensure the operation of institutions and the need for public services, local governments will compensate for the cost of public services through the development of a certain scale of industries, which in turn will affect the effectiveness of ecological environmental governance. The lack of political incentives will further aggravate this distortion effect. To increase the weight of ecological factors in the balanced transfer payment formula, appropriately expand the scale of special transfer payments for ecological function zones, set differential assessment gradients for ecological performance, and establish and implement a green promotion mechanism, which is important for solving incentive distortion effects and continuously improving the quality of ecological environment.