The Impacts of Mandatory Environmental Targets on GDP Growth Targets: An Analysis Based on the Spatial Autoregressive Model#

• 1、Business School, Hunan Normal University,410081

Abstract： This paper manually collates the data on the reduction of major pollutants and energy-saving targets at the prefecture-level cities in China during the 11th Five-Year Plan to the 13th Five-Year Plan period, constructs comprehensive energy-saving and emission-reduction targets, and employs spatial autoregressive models to explore the impact of environmental constraint targets on the setting of local governments\' economic growth targets. The study finds that when the comprehensive energy-saving and emission-reduction constraint target increases by 10%, the local government\'s economic growth target is reduced by 2%. When setting economic growth targets, local governments exhibit the phenomena of "horizontal competition," "vertical escalation," and "target ratchet." The age of the mayor has a significant negative impact on the economic growth target, while the education level of the secretary of the municipal party committee has a significant positive impact. Mechanism analysis reveals that in regions with less difficulty in energy-saving and emission reduction, the negative impact of environmental constraint targets on economic growth targets is smaller. The assessment of environmental targets s local governments to shift their attention to environmental protection, which "crowds out" their efforts in economic development tasks. Further analysis finds that the negative impact of environmental constraint targets on economic growth targets is greater in the eastern region, while there is no significant negative impact during the 10th Five-Year Plan period. These findings are conducive to understanding how local government officials weigh trade-offs in the context of the environmental target responsibility system, providing a theoretical basis for improving the government target responsibility system in the new era and achieving a win-win situation between environmental protection and economic development.

Keywords： environmental constraint targets economic growth targets horizontal competition; vertical escalation officer characteristics