Regional Differences In Spatial Impacts Of Foreign Trade And FDI On Air Environmental Efficiency In China

China’s economic opening-up has made tremendous achievements.The foreign trade and foreign direct investment(FDI)have been the important driving forces for China’s economic development in the context of economic globalization.However,China’s air pollution is increasingly serious.Environmental problems,especially air environment problems,have increasingly affected China’s social development at the present stage.A large amount of fossil energy is consumed in energy-intensive industries,which produces massive pollutants.This paper considers the economic,energy and environment factors and uses improved data envelopment analysis(DEA)to evaluate the air environmental efficiency(AEE)in Chinese 30 provinces from 2006 to 2017.From the regional perspective,this paper accurately grasps the spatial difference effects of economic growth,FDI,foreign trade,energy intensity,population,the proportion of industrialization and the level of urbanization on AEE,especially focuses on the spatial spillover effects of FDI and foreign trade on AEE.It conducts a spatial econometric analysis of autocorrelation and uses the spatial Durbin model(SDM)to analyze the influencing factors on the spatial convergence of the AEE.The following conclusions are drawn based on the empirical analysis.The inflow of FDI promotes AEE in the local eastern region,and it also has a positive spillover effect on the AEE in the surrounding provinces.The inflow of FDI can promote the AEE in the central region.It has a negative impact on the convergence of the AEE in western region.On the discussion of foreign trade,the increase of foreign trade reduces its AEE in the eastern and western regions while restrains the convergence of AEE in central and western regions.Significant regional differences exist in the AEE,the AEE is obviously higher in the eastern area than the AEE in the central and western areas,and the positive spatial autocorrelation exists in Chinese inter-regional AEE.The gap between the provincial AEE exists in the central area,and the provincial AEE gradually converges to the same steady-state level for the eastern and western areas;the difference in provincial AEE gradually narrows over time and tends to converge to its own steady-state level.Finally,according to the above empirical research results,this paper proposes a scientific basis for the government to formulate corresponding air pollutant emission reduction policies according to local conditions,and to provide theoretical and empirical support for the win-win goal of reducing pollutant emission and economic development.