Evolution of the Spatial Pattern of the Assets and Environmental Liabilities Conversion Rate and Its Influencing Factors

Abstract

With the extensive development of the economy, environmental degradation has become a serious global issue. How to ensure the sustainable development of regional environments has drawn widespread attention from governments, academia, and the public. As an index to measure the efficiency of financial expenditure on the environment by local governments, the assets and environmental liabilities conversion rate (AELCR), along with the spatial pattern changes it presents and the factors it is affected by, is worthy of in-depth study. This study took the AELCRs of 31 provinces in China from 2012 to 2017 as the research objects, analyzed their spatial patterns and evolution using GeoDa software, and explored their spatial distribution using a spatial econometric model. The results show that, on the whole, China’s provinces were characterized by unbalanced economic development and large gaps in development levels, and there were significant differences in the efficiencies of fiscal expenditure for environmental protection between regions. Overall, there was a negative correlation between China’s neighboring provinces, and there was strong heterogeneity between provinces with a low conversion efficiency and the surrounding provinces. Locally, most provinces did not show significant spatial correlation, while the local similarities of the AELCRs decreased from 2012 to 2017, and the heterogeneities increased. Through the analysis of influencing factors, it was found that the urbanization level and provincial R&D investment positively increased the AELCRs, where the positive impact of urbanization was more obvious; resource tax and urban infrastructure investment were negatively correlated with the conversion rates, and the negative impact of resource tax was greater. The findings of this study provide important theoretical and practical implications for local governments to reasonably allocate environmental expenditure and improve their conversion rate of assets and environmental liabilities.