Environmental Regulation,Technological Innovation And Upgrading Of Manufacturing Industry

As China’s economy has entered the new normal,the Chinese government has implemented structural reforms on the supply side.While maintaining rapid economic growth,it has paid more attention to the quality of economic development.At the same time,China’s industrialization process has brought a serious ecological environment,air pollution and water bodies.The serious pollution has forced China to optimize and upgrade the industrial structure of the manufacturing industry;the competition in the global manufacturing industry has changed from a cost advantage to an efficiency advantage,and innovation has become the core driving force for the development of the manufacturing industry.For this reason,China made the “Made in China 2025”.To provide a program of action for the transition from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power.Although China’s manufacturing industry has developed rapidly,it lacks the ability to innovate in technology and it has been at the low end of the value chain.The irrational structure of the manufacturing industry now exists for a long time.In recent years,China ’ s central government has intensively introduced a series of policies and measures to support the green development of the manufacturing industry.It has redoubled efforts to control atmospheric pollution and water pollution,promote the green development of the manufacturing industry,and improve the technological innovation capability of manufacturing enterprises.The impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation has been controversial for a long time,forming two mainstream perspectives,the traditional school and the "Porter Hypothesis." The “ Porter Hypothesis ” believes that environmental regulation can improve the technological innovation capability of enterprises,increase the profitability of enterprises,and enhance the international competitiveness of enterprises.The traditional school of thought is contrary to this point of view.Based on this,this paper starts from the pollution intensity and uses the SYS-GMM model to first examine the effect of environmental regulation on technological innovation using panel data from 27 sub-industries of China’s manufacturing industry in 2002-2016.As a result,it has been found that there is a positive "U" relationship between the level of environmental regulation in China and the level of technological innovation in manufacturing industries.That is,it will have a certain degree of obstruction to technological innovation in the early stages of environmental regulation.When environmental regulations reach a certain threshold,Can play a catalytic role in technological innovation.The increase in the level ofenvironmental regulation is not conducive to the improvement of the level of technological innovation in heavily polluting industries;the medium-pollution industry can reduce the effect of environmental regulations with economies of scale;the light pollution industry can easily meet the current level of environmental regulation due to its industry characteristics.The autonomy of technological innovation of enterprises with mild pollution is not high.Environmental regulation will improve the environmental quality and technological innovation to increase the production efficiency of manufacturing companies.At the same time,it will also have an impact on the industrial upgrading of manufacturing industries.In the current research,the impact of environmental regulation and technological innovation on the upgrading of manufacturing industries is affected.There are not many related studies.This paper adopts provincial-level panel data from 2005 to2016 and uses the SYS-GMM model to study the direct impact of environmental regulation and technological innovation on the upgrading of the manufacturing industry structure.It is found that the improvement of the level of environmental regulation can promote the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure of the manufacturing industry;The improvement of the level of innovation is the key to the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure;the effects of fixed assets investment and foreign direct investment on the adjustment of the industrial structure are small,and foreign direct investment has certain negative effects on the industrial structure.In terms of sub-regions,the environmental regulation in heavily polluted areas shows a positive“U”relationship with the adjustment of industrial structure.The role of technological innovation in the adjustment of industrial structure in heavily polluted areas is not significant;environmental regulation and adjustment of industrial structure in moderately polluted areas.The inverted "U" relationship indicates that the level of environmental regulation in moderately polluted areas is at a reasonable level,and continued improvement in the level of environmental regulation will have an adverse effect on industrial restructuring;weak regulatory standards will be weak in light polluted areas.It may be more likely that industrially transferred industries will take the more polluting industries from other regions with weaker economic development.This is not because of the transformation and upgrading of industries that emit large amounts of pollutants.Then using the fixed effect model to study the environmental regulation can indirectly affect the upgrading of manufacturing industry structure through technological innovation.The research results show that environmental regulation can promote the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure of manufacturing industry bypromoting technological innovation.Technological innovation is a key link in the upgrading of industrial structure.A reasonable level of environmental regulation can shut down enterprises for technological innovation,increase production efficiency,optimize production processes,and promote the transformation and upgrading of industrial structures.Finally,based on the empirical conclusions of this paper,combined with the experience in the development of manufacturing industries in developed countries,we propose relevant countermeasures and suggestions for the problems existing in the optimization and upgrading of China’s industrial structure,with a view to providing new development for China’s green manufacturing industry.Ideas.