The Impact Of Industrial Agglomeration On Environmental Efficiency Of Chinese Iron And Steel Industry

Since the reform and opening up,China’s industrial agglomeration has gradually become more apparent.However,industrial agglomeration has brought about a large amount of capital accumulation,but it has also caused a deterioration of the environment.Environmental issues have always been an unavoidable focal issue in China’s economic development.China’s current energy consumption is serious.The environmental pollution issue is increasingly prominent,and improving environmental efficiency is the most direct and effective way to solve this problem.In the critical period of China’s economic transformation,improving environmental efficiency has become the key to achieving sustainable economic development.As the pillar industry of China’s economic development,steel is a typical representative of high-pollution,high-energy-consuming industries,and its environmental efficiency is at a relatively low level.Therefore,taking the steel industry as the research object and studying its environmental efficiency is of great significance to improving the environmental efficiency of China’s highly polluting industries.This paper takes the iron and steel industry as the research object,and first analyzes the impact of industrial agglomeration on environmental efficiency from both horizontal and vertical perspectives.Horizontal agglomeration mainly influences environmental efficiency through horizontal scale effect,technology spillover effect and competition effect.Vertical agglomeration mainly influences environmental efficiency through vertical scale effects,structural effects,and continuous innovation effects,but the roles played by the two when they are in different stages are different.Then,the horizontal industry concentration degree and vertical industrial concentration degree of the steel industry are measured,and the environmental efficiency of the steel industry during the period 2001-2015 is estimated using the SBM model that takes into account undesired outputs.Then,the variables are explained with horizontal and vertical concentration as the core,and four factors,such as firm size,technological progress,opening to the outside world,and environmental regulation,are used as control variables to establish a multivariate linear regression equation to analyze the influence of various factors on environmental efficiency.At the same time,we added the square term of horizontal agglomeration and vertical agglomeration to explore the non-linear effects of industrial agglomeration on environmental efficiency.The results show that horizontal agglomeration has a positive U-shaped effect on environmental efficiency;Vertical agglomeration has an inverted U-shaped effect on environmental efficiency;Environmental regulation and opening to the outside have a significant positive effect on environmental efficiency;The effect enterprise size and technological progress on environmental efficiency is not obvious.Based on the above conclusions,on the basis of theoretical and empirical evidence,this paper proposes corresponding countermeasures and suggestions based on the relationship and current status of industrial agglomeration and environmental efficiency in China’s steel industry.