| After more than 30 years of rapid development,China’s accumulated ecological and environmental problems have become gradually prominent.In the face of increasingly severe pressures to reduce emissions,improving the intensity of environmental regulations before reaching the environmental carrying capacity is an inevitable choice to achieve sustainable development,but this may also bring some employment shocks to the society.With the strengthening of environmental regulation in China,some enterprises with high energy consumption and high emissions have been forced to close down,which has caused a large number of unemployed people.Some enterprises are under the pressure to reduce emissions and cut production capacity,which limits their economic benefits and reduces their employment-absorbing capacity.In the short term,the unemployment problem caused by environmental protection is very serious.Technological innovation is of great significance to the long-term green development of the economy.At the same time,the employment creation mechanism of technological innovation has the effect of improving people’s livelihood.Is technological innovation an effective way to achieve the "double dividend" of environmental protection and employment growth? How to use reasonable environmental policies and innovation policies to deal with the contradiction between environmental protection and employment shocks? The answer to these questions helps to understand and solve the dilemma between environmental protection and employment growth in a more comprehensive and in-depth way.In 2009,the world labor report put forward the "double dividend hypothesis" of employment,that is,appropriate environmental regulation can stimulate labor demand while improving the environmental quality,so as to realize the double dividend of environmental regulation and employment growth.However,there is no consensus on whether environmental regulation has the double dividend of improving environmental quality and promoting employment in existing research.According to Porter’s hypothesis,appropriate environmental regulations can stimulate technological innovation of enterprises,but enterprises’ changing production technology or pollution control technology will have an uncertain impact on employment.This paper introduces technological innovation into the discussion of the relationship between environmental regulation and the employment.It analyzes the direct impact of environmental regulation on employment,as a new perspective,and takes technological innovation as a mediating variable to analyze the indirect impact of environmental regulation on employment,which will make the research on the relationship between environmental regulation,technological innovation and the employment more accurate and comprehensive.Based on the background of global environmental crisis and the current situation of China’s technological innovation and the employment,this paper studies the topics along the basic line of theoretical research → mechanism exploration → empirical analysis → policy design.Firstly,in the theoretical research,on the basis of Porter hypothesis,double dividend hypothesis,creative destruction theory and employment compensation theory and other related theories,through sorting the literatures of related themes about environmental regulation,technological innovation,and the employment,this paper puts forward a new analysis framework.Secondly,in terms of mechanism exploration,the paper obtains the interaction mechanism of environmental regulation,technological innovation and labor employment through mathematical analysis and ductive refinement,and then reveals the transmission channels through which technological innovation affects the relationship between environmental regulation and employment growth.Thirdly,in terms of empirical analysis,the panel data of 34 industrial sectors in China were used as samples to empirically test the direct and indirect effects of environmental regulation on employment from the perspective of industry heterogeneity,and the mediating effect model was used to verify the transmission mechanism of environmental regulation,technological innovation and employment growth,furthermore,technological innovation is divided into product innovation and process innovation to identify how different types of technological innovation coordinate the relationship between environmental regulation and employment growth.Finally,in the policy design,according to the historical stage and evolution track of environmental regulation in China,combined with the results of empirical tests,this paper puts forward China’s policy choice to utilize technological innovation to achieve environmental protection and employment growth.The research results show that environmental regulation not only directly affects employment,but also generates indirect employment effects through technological innovation(product innovation and process innovation).There are two mechanisms for the direct impact of environmental regulation on employment: negative cost effect and positive substitution effect.The influence of environmental regulation on technological innovation depends on the result of the combination of offset effect and compensation effect.Furthermore,technological innovation has two opposite effects on employment,one is the replacement mechanism of destroying employment,and the other is the compensation mechanism of creating employment.Through the empirical test of the mediating effect model,the interaction mechanism of the three factors is verified.The mediating effect coefficient of technological innovation is(0.061,-0.183)(where,0.061 is the quadratic term coefficient and-0.183 is the primary term coefficient),which is equal to the total effect coefficient of environmental regulation on employment(0.535,-1.622)minus the direct effect coefficient of environmental regulation on employment(0.474,-1.439).Similarly,the sum of the mediating effect coefficients of product innovation and process innovation is(0.06,-0.18),which further verifies the reliability of the interaction mechanism of the three.Technological innovation can effectively alleviate or offset the potential negative effect of environmental regulation on employment.In order to realize the double dividend of environmental protection and employment growth,differentiated environmental regulation strategies should be implemented according to the U-shaped thresholds of environmental regulation and the employment in different industries.The environmental regulation intensity of the industry should be improved appropriately,and the technological innovation of enterprises should be stimulated by environmental economic measures.The market-oriented green technology innovation system should be built to promote green economic development and employment growth.It is necessary to promote the flexible matching of labor demand and supply,and reduce the social cost of environmental regulation.The marginal contribution of this article lies in the following: Firstly,it introduces environmental factors into the production function,and derives a basic model of employment impact factors including environmental policy and R&D investment.Through theoretical synthesis and induction,the paper reveals the influence mechanism between environmental regulation,technological innovation and labor employment,which is conducive to a more comprehensive and profound understanding of the complex relationship between environmental protection and employment growth.Secondly,based on panel data from 34 industrial sub-sectors in China from 2006 to 2015,it applies the mediation effect model to the empirically test the relationship between the three according to different pollution level and technical level of industry,which will help provide empirical support and reference for government departments to implement differentiated environmental regulation strengths and technological innovation strategies for different industries in the context of innovation-driven strategies. |
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