南湖新闻网讯（通讯员 杨楠楠） 近日，经济管理学院毛海欧副教授与德国基尔世界经济研究所Holger Görg教授、华中科技大学经济学院方国培博士在Canadian Journal of Economics发表题为“Time to Say Goodbye? The Impact of Environmental Regulation on Foreign Divestment”的论文。
全球产业链重构背景下外商撤资是国际直接投资领域的热点话题。大多国家制定了吸引外资的政策，却对外商撤资问题关注不足。该研究将两控区（酸雨控制区和二氧化硫污染控制区）政策实施作为准自然实验，采用中国企业财务和城市经济地理匹配数据，实证检验了东道国环境政策变化对外商撤资决策的影响。
研究发现，两控区政策提高了目标城市和行业的外商撤资概率。该发现在考虑多重控制变量、其他政策冲击、溢出效应、替代变量等问题后依然稳健。机制分析表明，两控区政策提高了外资企业的排污费用、增加了减排设施安装，但并未实现倒逼外资企业绿色生产技术进步的目标。另外，当外资来自环境监管相对宽松、环境技术相对落后的国家时，其撤资概率更高。
该研究的学术贡献在于：第一，率先提供了东道国环境规制影响外商撤资的经验证据，有力地发展了外商撤资理论研究。第二，从外商撤资角度丰富了“污染天堂”假说，突破了现有研究仅仅关注外资进入的不足。第三，利用详实的微观数据评估了两控区政策对企业经营决策的影响，丰富了两控区政策的评估研究。
该研究得到国家自然科学基金、华中农业大学自主科技创新基金、经济管理学院高水平论文培育项目、湖北省高等学校优秀中青年科技创新团队“农业产业与技术经济”的资助。
审核人：李谷成
英文摘要：
We look at divestments by foreign firms—a topic that has received comparatively little attention in the literature—and investigate how changes in the regulatory environment in the host country may impact on such divestment decisions. We use the implementation of China's two control zones (TCZ) policy as a “quasi-natural experiment,” using detailed firm-level combined with city-level data for the empirical analysis. Our results show that the implementation of the TCZ policy has led to higher probabilities of divestments by foreign firms in cities and industries targeted by the TCZ policy. The mechanism behind this seems to be a TCZ-induced increase in discharge fees and efforts to reduce SO2 emissions. Allowing for heterogeneity of effects, we find that the effect is particularly strong for firms from source countries with less stringent environmental regulation and those using less advanced technology. We also show that firms using intermediates from polluting industries also experience a higher probability of divestment.
