An Empirical Study On The Environmental Effects Of Transfers Of Interprovincial Pollution Industries In China

Industrial transfer serves as an important source for industrial transformation and upgrading and even economic growth,which raises great concern in the government.Among all types of industries that have been transferred in China,pollution industries account for the largest proportion.The transfers of these industries,originally from developed countries,increase local pollutants discharge and lead to environmental deterioration.With the increasingly strict environmental regulations in China,the trend of transferring from foreign countries has diminished.Instead,the inter-provincial transfers of pollution industries have become dominant,especially between eastern,central and western provinces.The existing theoretical and empirical results show that there is a complex relationship between the transfer of pollution industries and transfer of pollution,even though some provinces have suffered from pollution worsening.That is,the transfer of pollution industries does not necessarily lead to the transfer of pollution,because the relationship is influenced by various factors such as industrial characteristics,enterprise characteristics,government preferences,and institutional design.Based on the existing theoretical results and empirical experience,this paper tested the environmental effects of the inter-provincial transfers of three types of heavy pollution industries which discharge sulfur dioxide,wastewater and fumes in China from 2006 to 2017 by establishing a panel model,in order to study the environmental effects of the transfer of China’s inter provincial pollution industries.The results show that:(1)There are significant differences in the environmental effects of transfers of the three types of heavy pollution industries.There is no statistically significant relationship between sulfur dioxide emissions and industrial transfers of sulfur dioxide heavy pollution industries,but transfers of wastewater and fumes industries lead to the transfer of wastewater and fumes emissions;and the empirical results based on the sub-samples of 2011-2017 show that during this period,the proportion of industrial sulfur dioxide emissions is in relation to the proportion of industrial output value of sulfur dioxide heavy pollution industry and industrial competitiveness.The coefficient is significantly negatively correlated,indicating that the transfer do not lead to the transfer of sulfur dioxide pollution,while the transfers of wastewater and fumes industries still lead to the transfer of wastewater and fumes emissions.According to the theory of technology effect of industrial transfer,the possible reasons for the difference of environmental effect of different pollution industries are: compared with the heavy pollution industries of waste water and smoke,the technology effect of sulfur dioxide heavy pollution industry transfer is stronger and has stronger positive environmental effect.(2)Environmental regulations can effectively weaken the pollution transfers caused by industrial transfers.For those areas with strong environmental regulation,the proportion of sulfur dioxide and industrial wastewater discharge is significantly negatively correlated with the competitiveness coefficient of sulfur dioxide and wastewater heavy pollution industries.The transfers of pollution industries do not lead to the corresponding transfers of pollution;however,for those areas with less strict environmental regulations,the proportion of those three types of pollutant emissions is significantly positively correlated with the competitiveness coefficient of the corresponding heavy pollution industries.The industrial transfers obviously cause the transfers of pollution emissions.(3)The direction of industrial transfers has a certain regulating effect on the environmental effects of the transfers of inter-provincial pollution industry in China.It is manifested that,when classifying the directions of industrial transfers of all provinces,regardless of the classification method based on the index of industrial output value or the index of industrial competitiveness coefficient,the coefficients of the industrial transfers variables in the regression results of the areas with inward industrial transfers are more statistically significant than those areas with outward industrials transfers.The empirical results of this paper further indicate that,firstly,whether the transfers of inter-provincial pollution industries will cause pollution transfers is related to the measurement method of industrial transfers.Different measurement methods will lead to inconsistent empirical results.According to the results,the adaption of index of industrial competitiveness coefficient is more reasonable than the index of the proportion of industrial output;secondly,the environmental effects of the transfers of inter-provincial pollution industries in China are closely related to specific pollution industries.The pollution transfers caused by the transfers of different pollution industries are different,and this effect also changes with time;finally,some factors have a moderating effect on the environmental effects of the transfers of inter-provincial pollution industries in China.Compared with industrial transfer-out areas,industrial transfer-in areas have more obvious environmental effects.Meanwhile,policy interventions expressed in environmental regulations can weaken the impact of environmental pollution caused by the transfers of pollution industries.These results and findings reflect the realities of the local economic development in China,and they complement the lack of relevant empirical research in China to a certain extent.They not only provide new evidences for theoretical research,but also provide beneficial policy references for balancing regional economic growth and ecological environment.