| The iron and steel(IS)industry has typical characteristics of "high energy consumption"and "high pollution" due to the nature of raw materials used and production processes.In addition,affected by the "quantitative" expansion model and the changes in domestic and foreign market demand over the years,the IS industry has been hammered by severe overcapacity problem.Corporate profitability and industrial profits have also been affected.Therefore,in the context of the new normal of China's economy,how to accelerate the green transformation and upgrading of the steel industry through effective environmental governance has become an urgent issue.Drawing on the theory of economic growth and driving factors,the theory of green growth,the convergence hypothesis of economic growth,externalities,and the Porter hypothesis,this study takes into account of the environmental impacts during the development of the IS industry to establish an analysis framework.In this framework,the impact mechanisms of heterogeneous environmental regulations on the industrial green growth is observed.Panel data of national large and medium-sized IS companies from 2010 to 2017 are used for empirical tests,and the main contents and conclusions are presented as follows.First,a Malmquist-Luenberger index model from a global perspective based on a hybrid radial Epsilon-based measure(EBM)model is constructed to propose a new measure of green growth level of the IS industry.Furthermore,the Zofio decomposition analysis is used to explore the driving factors of green growth changes of the industry.The empirical results show that:1)The green growth level of the IS industry has increased and improved to a certain extent,with an average annual growth rate around 0.80%.Although there is a slight slowdown during 2011-2012 and 2014-2015,the green growth index of the national IS industry improved in the recent years.2)From the regional perspective,the eastern region has the highest level of green growth,followed by the central region and the western region.It is worth noting that the decline of green growth in the western region has led to a trend of non-green growth in the region.3)From the perspective of growth drivers,the green growth at the national level mainly depends on technological progress and scale effects.However,the overall inefficient management of the industry and the scale bias of technical change have caused restraints and negative effects on green growth.4)For IS industry in the eastern region,multiple-driven rising from managerial capability,technological progress,and scale effects has appeared.The industrial green growth levels in the central and western regions,are both enhanced by the promotion of technological progress and the expansion of the industrial scale.It is worth noting that scale bias of technical change has inhibited the green growth in eastern,central and western regions.Second,based on the convergence hypothesis,this study constructs absolute convergence,conditional convergence,random convergence,kernel density test,and relationship convergence models to observe the green growth convergence features of the IS industry as well as the impacts of environmental regulations on green growth convergence.The research findings indicate that:1)Significant absolute convergence and conditional convergence trends of green growth in the IS industry exist on the national,eastern,central,and western regions.Moreover,convergence and catching-up effects of the industrial green growth appears across regions.Which means,the absolute gaps in green growth between regions and between enterprises have been narrowing down overtime,and a significant catching-up effect from less-developed regions to developed regions also appeared.Nevertheless,despite the absolute gap decreases,the relative gap(between regions and between enterprises)cannot disappeared in the short term.2)Stochastic convergence tests exist significantly in the country and the east,middle,and west regions,indicating that the green growth convergence path of the IS industry in each region is relatively stab.and consistent.3)The kernel density test proves that the difference in industrial green growth has narrowed down over time.However,at the same time,the absolute gap between some high-green growth level companies and low-green growth level companies has also widened in recent years.4)The promoting effect of environmental regulation on the convergence of conditions in the IS industry is significantly observed.Furthermore,different types of environmental regulations(i.e.,administrative order type,economic incentive type,and voluntary conscious type)and the comprehensive environmental regulation intensity have all contributed to the establishment of conditional convergence and the green growth of the IS industry.5)results from the relationship convergence test between environmental regulation and industrial green growth indicate that the convergence of regional environmental regulation intensity cannot effectively promote the narrowing of the green growth gaps among regions,and may even lead to a divergence outcome.Therefore,it is necessary to choose environmental regulation tools and combinations according to local conditions.Third,this paper constructs a comprehensive feasible generalized least squares(FGLS)panel regression model to study the impacts of heterogeneous environmental regulations and other important factors on green growth of the IS industry in different regions.The research results show that:1)The administrative order-based regulation has played a positive role in the green growth of the IS industry both on the national and the regional levels.This result indicates that China has a relatively high degree of maturity in environmental regulations and tools for administrative orders.It also shows that the current formal regulatory intensity has not yet reached the "saturation point." There is still room for the enhancement of the intensity of administrative regulations.2)The economic incentive regulations represented by sewage charges have a positive effect on the green growth level of the IS industry in the central region,but this finding does not stand for the eastern and western regions.This outcome won't deny the expectation or effect of market-based regulation theory,it only indicates that the effects of current regulation methods and tools are relatively limited.3)Although the voluntary conscious regulation has not yet played a significant role in promoting the green growth of the IS industry in general,this tool has begun to play a not-so-apparent positive role.Besides,voluntary conscious regulation has shown positive effects on the industrial green growth in both the eastern and western regions.4)The improvement of the endowment structure has promoted the green growth of the IS industry in the eastern and western regions,but this conclusion does not hold on the national level and central regions level.The increasement in enterprise age has inhibited the green growth of the IS industry in the nationwide,the eastern region,and the western regions.Product structure upgrading and optimization has a significant positive impact on the green growth of the industry on nationwide,eastern,central,and western levels.Improvement in research and development capability can effectively promote industrial green growth on the national and central levels,but such effect does not prominent to the industrial green development in the eastern and western regions.The level of resource recycling has not played a positive role in the green growth of the IS industry,neither on general or in regional discussions.Based on the aforementioned research findings,this paper further proposes countermeasures for green governance of the IS industry in different regions. |
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