Fiscal decentralization, government innovation preference, and haze pollution

Local governments are the dominant players in haze pollution control; furthermore, financial power reconstruction affects the effectiveness of haze control. Government innovation preference achieves win-win results for environmental protection and economic development by increasing innovation support. Therefore, a moderating variable for government innovation preference was added to the fiscal decentralization effect on haze pollution, and their interactive effect on haze pollution was studied. This study was conducted in 30 provincial regions. Thus, the severity of regional haze pollution differs because of temporal heterogeneity and asynchronous development. Furthermore, we analyzed the impact on haze pollution from the perspectives of the temporal and spatial differences in different regions of China. The results indicate that (1) fiscal decentralization increases haze pollution, while government innovation preferences control it. (2) In a local evaluation model with a diversified background, fiscal decentralization restrains haze pollution, and pollution source complexity reduces government innovation preference’s control pollution function. The interaction term revealed that government innovation preferences had a significant moderating effect. (3) Fiscal decentralization and government innovation preferences control the heterogeneity of haze pollution in different regions.