Study On The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Green Economy Efficiency From The Perspective Of Local Government Competition

Forty years of reform and opening up process has made great achievements in China’s economic growth,but it has also caused problems such as deterioration of the ecological environment and shortage of resources,affecting people’s normal life.Coordinating the relationship between economic growth and the ecological environment has become an issue that China urgently needs to pay attention to and solve.Although governments at all levels have issued a series of laws and regulations to protect and improve the ecological environment,under the current performance appraisal system,local governments have obvious “race-to-bottom” competition behaviors when implementing environmental regulation policies.The implementation effect of environmental regulation is not obvious,and it also affects the China’s green economy efficiency.Based on the perspective of local government competition,this paper uses the provincial panel data of 30 regions in China from 2000 to 2016 to study the impact of environmental regulation on green economic efficiency.First,combing the existing literature,analyzing the impact mechanism of environmental regulation on the efficiency of green economy and the role of local government competition.Secondly,the environmental regulation intensity and the green economy efficiency value of each region are measured separately,and the changes and differences are analyzed from the two dimensions of space and time.It is found that the environmental regulation intensity and the green economy efficiency of different regions and different years are quite different,which are mostly related to the economic development level of the region.The environmental regulation intensity and green economy efficiency in the eastern region are higher,while those in the central and western regions are lower.Thirdly,using the SYS-GMM method to analyze the impact of environmental regulation on the efficiency of green economy,it is found that there is a “U”-shaped curve relationship between environmental regulation and green economy efficiency,the turning point of environmental regulation intensity is about 0.13.That is,as the intensity of environmental regulation increases,the efficiency of green economy will decline.However,as the environmental regulation intensity exceeds the turning point,the green economy will increase.Then,based on the above empirical evidence,the introduction of environmental regulation and the interaction between the square terms and local government competition,it is found that local government competition has a differential impact on the relationship between environmental regulation and green economy efficiency,in environmental regulation and green economy efficiency.On the left side of the “U”-shaped curve relationship,the existence of local government competition will weaken the negative effect of environmental regulation on the efficiency of green economy;on the right side of the relationship between environmental regulation and green economy efficiency “U” curve,the existence of local government competition will Suppress the positive effects of environmental regulation on the efficiency of green economy.Finally,combined with the research results,the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are given on how to promote the improvement of regional green economy efficiency.