Green Taxation, Trade Liberalization and Natural Resource Utilization

Environmental protection is an essential path to achieving high-quality economic development, and green tax policies are an effective means of achieving environmental protection. This study categorizes green tax policies into environmental protection-oriented green tax policies, resource-oriented green tax policies, and guidance-oriented green tax policies based on the nature of the tax. The fixed-effect model, the system GMM model and the continuous DID model are used to explore the causal relationship between the overall green tax policy, the classified green tax policy and the use of natural resources. The spatial Durbin model is used to explore the spatial spillover effect of the green tax policy and the regional heterogeneity in the east, central, west and northeast of China. Finally, the role of trade openness in the relationship between the green tax policy and natural resource use is explored. The research results show that (1) the green tax policy has a positive effect on natural resource use, but the green tax policy in the previous period has no promoting effect, and the natural resource use in the previous period has a positive impact on the current period. Among them, there is no causal relationship between the resource-occupying green tax and natural resource use. (2) All three types of green tax policies studied in this paper have spatial spillover effects, but the spillover effects of the three types of green tax policies are relatively small in the eastern region. The spillover effects of the three types of green tax policies in the central region are significantly negative. In the western region, only the guiding green tax policy has a spillover effect. In the northeastern region, the environmental protection green tax policy and the resource-based green tax policy are significantly negative, while the guiding green tax spillover effect is significantly positive. (3) In the mechanism test, the guiding green tax policy has an impact on natural resource utilization through trade openness, while the environmental protection green tax policy and the resource-based green tax policy cannot affect natural resource utilization through the level of trade openness. Finally, based on the research conclusions, policy recommendations are proposed from the perspectives of policy timeliness, tax structure adjustment, and trade network optimization to maximize economic benefits.