Abstract Non-tax revenue is one of the important tools of the fiscal competition among the local governments to promote economic development. Based on spatial econometric model and provincial panel data for China from 2004 to 2012, this paper carries out a quantitative and qualitative study of non-tax revenue competition among local governments and their impacts on environmental pollution. The results reveal that: first, the provincial governments take the strategies of mutual imitation on non-tax revenue competition; second, the level of environmental pollution in a province is in inverse proportion to the non-tax revenue burden rate in the province and that in the adjacent province; third, the effects of provincial governments’ non-tax revenue competition on environmental pollution show the characteristic of “Race to the Bottom”. These findings, theoretically and empirically, support the view of “Purging Fees and Establishing Taxes” as well as the necessity of imposing environmental tax from the perspective of non-tax revenue competition.
2017, Vol. 34 
