Abstract: Based on the data of 87 key cities in China from 2003 to 2016, the relationships among fiscal decentralization, local government catching-up and environmental governance efficiency are deeply explored through DEA-Tobit and panel threshold regression methods. The results show that local government catching-up and Catching-up have different impacts on cities with different levels of economic development. The non-linear impact of decentralization on the efficiency of environmental governance is mainly distributed in regions with low administrative level and backward economic development. Only when fiscal decentralization reaches or exceeds the threshold, can local governments catch up with and surpass the environmental governance efficiency.

Key words: fiscal decentralization, local government catch-up behavior, environmental governance efficiency