The Impact of China’s Environmental Protection Tax on Regional Economic Effects

Abstract

In 2018, China adopted the Environmental Protection Tax Law, transitioning from administrative fees to statutory taxes. The law aimed to incentivize enterprises to reduce pollution emissions through economic means, improve environmental quality, and promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structures for economic development. This study seeks to reveal the mechanisms of the impact of environmental protection tax on regional economic effects, providing policy recommendations for achieving high-quality economic development and ecological environmental protection. The study analyses four key variables—environmental protection tax revenue, regional industrial output value, regional GDP, and regional industrial pollution control investment—from 31 regions in China between 2018 and 2022, forming a sample of 30 observations. A random effects model is constructed and empirically analysed using Python 3.12. The empirical results show that for every additional unit of environmental protection tax, the average expected growth of regional GDP is 0.1043 units. There are significant differences in the economic effects of China’s environmental protection tax on regions, and these differences have random effects. This study provides new insights and empirical evidence for understanding and evaluating the impact of environmental protection taxes on regional economic outcomes, helping policymakers assess current impacts and continue encouraging enterprises to adopt clean production technologies, improve energy efficiency, and promote economic structure optimization and industrial upgrading to support high-quality economic development.