Financial Agglomeration, Resource Tax Collection and Carbon Emissions—An Empirical Study Based on 31 Provinces

Since the reform and opening up, China's economy has grown rapidly, becoming the world's second-largest economy. However, this achievement has come at the cost of high resource consumption and severe environmental pollution. China is urgently in need of transitioning to a sustainable development model. To this end, China began to levy a resource tax in 1984. The proposal of the 2020 “dual carbon” goals further highlights the importance of carbon emission reduction. At the same time, with the continuous development of the financial sector, while supporting the development of the real economy, a significant environmental effect has also been generated. To study the impact mechanism between financial agglomeration, resource tax, and carbon emissions, this paper selects panel data from 31 provinces in mainland China from 2007 to 2021 and empirically analyzes the impact of resource tax revenue on carbon dioxide emissions using the system GMM model. The research shows that the resource tax can effectively suppress carbon emissions and promote the improvement of the financial agglomeration level. Furthermore, the enhancement of financial agglomeration further promotes the reduction of carbon emissions.