Research On The Impact Of Environmental Regulations Of Two Control Zones On The Adjustment Of Urban Industrial Structure

Since the adoption of the reform and opening-up era,the rapid economic growth of cities in China has been based on the continuous accumulation and concentrated outbreak of environmental damage and ecological damage.At the critical stage of China’s economic growth shift and transformation and upgrading,how to promote high-quality economic development and industrial structure optimization and upgrading through the formulation and implementation of government regulatory policies is crucial.In order to cope with the problem of acid rain and sulfur dioxide pollution,the State Council formally approved the "Division Plan for Acid Rain Control Areas and Sulfur Dioxide Pollution Control Areas" in 1998.The long-term goal of pollution control is defined in the plan,which aims to achieve sustainable development through comprehensive prevention and control measures,including adjusting industrial structure,promoting clean energy,eliminating outdated technologies and equipment,and combining them with terminal treatment.Therefore,this article takes the "two-control zone" policy as an exogenous impact and adopts a difference in difference method to study the impact of environmental regulations on the adjustment of industrial structure at the city level from the two aspects of advanced and rationalized industrial structure.Firstly,this paper sorts out the relevant theories and literatures of environmental regulation and industrial structure adjustment,and then analyzes the mechanism of the impact of environmental regulation on industrial structure.Secondly,the panel data from 1994 to 2016 at the city level was used to empirically analyze the impact of the TCZ policy on the advancement and rationalization of the urban industrial structure.Then,A series of tests on hypothesis premises and robustness were carried out by means of parallel trend test,change of policy impact time,repeated random setting of experimental group,repeated test,and propensity score matching.Thirdly,the mediating effect of the TCZ policy on the adjustment of urban industrial structure is tested.The empirical results show that:(i)The implementation of the TCZ policy effectively promotes the development of urban industrial structure in the direction of advancement and rationalization.(ii)In terms of spatial distribution,the policy effect of the two control areas has obvious heterogeneity.In the eastern region,the policy of TCZ effectively promotes and encourages the transformation and upgrading of urban industrial structure,and the net effect is higher than the national average level.In the western region,the implementation of the TCZ policy has no significant impact on the adjustment of industrial structure.In the middle region,the policy of two control zones has played a positive role in the rationalization of urban industrial structure.In the "acid control zone",the policy of TCZ significantly promoted the rationalization of industrial structure.In the "sulfur control area",the transformation of the industrial structure to the service industry has significantly promoted through the policy of TCZ.(iii)Cities with better resource endowments often form a transitional dependence on abundant resources in the process of economic development,which has caused certain obstacles to the urban long-term sustainable development and industrial structure transformation and upgrading.(iv)The results of the mediating effect test of the TCZ policy show that the technological innovation and consumer demand play a mediating role between the regulation policy and the adjustment of industrial structure,among which the mediating effect on the rationalization of industrial structure accounts for a relatively low proportion of the total effect.In addition,investment demand only played an intermediary role in the TCZ policy and industrial structure advancement.Finally,in the process of long-term pollution control,China should fully consider the differences between cities.Based on a specific stage of economic development,we should formulate long-term and effective environmental control policies,rationally use fiscal expenditures and foreign investment,and strengthen the construction of human capital.It provides necessary policy ideas and supporting measures for the win-win cooperation between environmental regulation and urban industrial structure adjustment.