The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On The Transfer Of Pollution Intensive Industries

With the sustained and stable growth of China’s economy,the eastern region of China has developed rapidly by virtue of its geographical and policy advantages.In a short period of time,its development speed has far exceeded the national average level,and the disparity of regional economic development between the eastern and western regions is increasing day by day.Due to the rapid improvement of economic development in the eastern region,people’s awareness of environmental protection is also increasing.The government pays more attention to environmental protection while developing the economy.The result of the continuous improvement of environmental regulation is that the local pollution-intensive industries are gradually shifting to areas with relatively weak environmental regulation.In the central and Western regions,the level of economic development is relatively slow.In order to develop the economy,local governments tend to lower the environmental regulation standards to attract more enterprises in order to promote the development of local economy.In the short run,the transfer of pollution-intensive industries can stimulate the economic development of the central and Western regions,and is conducive to the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure in the eastern region.The background of this paper is based on the fact that there are great differences in regional environmental regulation,which results in the transfer of pollution-intensive industries.From a theoretical point of view,this paper combs and analyses the mechanism of industrial transfer and explores whether the phenomenon of"pollution refuge" exists in China,which is the theoretical basis for the government to formulate relevant policies and systems.Most of the existing literature studies the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial transfer or the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial agglomeration.Few studies combine environmental regulation,industrial transfer and industrial agglomeration.This paper attempts to combine environmental regulation,industrial transfer and industrial agglomeration to make up for the shortcomings of the existing literature.From a practical point of view,it is of great practical significance to analyze the impact of environmental regulation on the transfer of pollution-intensive industries.Empirical analysis of the impact of environmental regulation on the transfer of pollution-intensive industries under different agglomeration levels provides policy makers with decision-making reference for coordinating environmental regulation policies and industrial agglomeration policies,and achieving coordinated development of economic development and environmental protection.On the basis of relevant academic research,this paper analyses whether environmental regulation will promote the interregional transfer of pollution-intensive industries in China.On the basis of defining the pollution-intensive industries,the paper chooses and calculates the industrial transfer index and environmental regulation index,illustrates the temporal and spatial change trend of the pollution-intensive industries with numerical intuition,and then analyses the regional differences of the intensity of environmental regulation in China.Based on the panel data of China’s provinces from 2003 to 2013,this paper analyzed how environmental regulation affects the transfer of pollution-intensive industries in China based on the fixed-effect model.The results show that:firstly,the improvement of environmental regulation intensity will force enterprises to move out of the region and to areas with low environmental regulation level.Secondly,in China,the difference of the level of environmental regulation between different regions is the premise of the transfer of pollution intensive industries.Finally,the empirical analysis results show that in China,the impact of environmental regulation on the transfer of pollution-intensive industries is "inverted U-shaped",that is,the impact of environmental regulation on the transfer of pollution-intensive industries is dual.On the left side of the extreme point,pollution-intensive industries turn in with the improvement of environmental regulation,but when the extreme point is crossed,with the improvement of environmental regulation,pollution-intensive industries begin to turn out.At the same time,this paper innovatively combines environmental regulation,industrial agglomeration and industrial transfer,and uses threshold regression method to analyze the impact of environmental regulation on the transfer of pollution-intensive industries under different industrial agglomeration degrees.It is found that environmental regulation has a double threshold effect on the transfer of pollution-intensive industries,and the degree of local industrial agglomeration plays an important role in this non-linear effect.When the degree of industrial agglomeration is low,the increase of environmental regulation intensity increases the cost of enterprises,and the degree of local agglomeration is low,which can not produce agglomeration effect for enterprises.Pollution-intensive industries will choose to transfer to areas with weak environmental regulation.When the industrial agglomeration degree of the region rises to a certain extent,it will produce the agglomeration effect of knowledge and technology sharing,talent resources sharing,management and system sharing for the surrounding enterprises.This agglomeration effect exceeds the cost brought by the improvement of environmental regulation to enterprises,so enterprises will continue to move in,along with the industrial agglomeration degree.Continuous improvement will drive further pollution intensive industries.