Effects Of Polluting Industry Distribution And Environmental Regulation On Regional Green Total Factor Productivity

Since 1978,China has become the largest recipient during the fourth global industrial transfer.Some regions in China were benefit a lot from the high economic growth of industry undertaking,but paid a great environmental cost as well.In order to control pollution emissions,China's improving environmental regulation becomes stricter,and this brings a series of impacts: in addition to being a major role of “pollution haven” effect,therefore,relationship between environmental regulation and competition becomes a hot issue both for academic studies and for the government concerns.Based on this context,taking polluting industries as the study object,this thesis focuses on effects of industrial structure and environmental regulation policies on regional sustainable development competitiveness.On the one hand,it is an extension and empirical test of the new structural economics(NSE);on the other hand,it is a comprehensive evaluation of the economic and environment of industry distribution,thus providing some support for the theory basis and decision making of the industry distribution strategy in the future.Literature review told us that,most theory and empirical studies in the past focused on one aspect of economic and environmental performance,and it was lack of systematically research on environmental policy,industrial structure and sustainable development,which makes it hard to find out the complicated laws among the three.I construct an NSE framework to explain effects of polluting industry distribution and environmental regulation on green total factor productivity(GTFP),put forward hypotheses and prove them through empirical studies in detail.NSE infers that,this theory provides a good explanation on sustainable development facing environmental issues.It is a “win-win matter” for developing regions with environment endowments and for developed regions without it,when polluting industry distributes in a proper way.For environmental regulation,it controls pollution emissions and improves this proper distribution as well,which enhance the “win-win matter”.Results of empirical studies support theoretical hypotheses.First,I construct a panel data model with moderating effect based on environmental Kuznets curve(EKC)to investigate effect of environmental regulation on the relationship between pollution emissions and economic development.I find that there is an EKC in China,a significant moderating effect of environmental regulation on environmental Kuznets curve shows up,and stringent environmental regulation can significantly shorten the GDP per capita on the turning point of EKC.Furthermore,besides considering environmental regulation which as institutional factor,the effect of technological innovation on EKC is also inspected;I find that R&D input is in favor of a longer lag effect but benefits to reduce pollution emissions: emissions can be suppressed during the upward ofEKC,and reduced dramatically in the downward stage of EKC.I also find that,stringent environmental regulation might force high emission industries distributed from the east to the mid-west in China.And then,I inspect the so called “pollution haven” effect.With the help of Stock-model,I estimate effect of three type of environmental regulation on numbers of polluting firms in different regions;in addition,I group heavy and light pollution industries for comparison.The result shows that,environmental regulation significantly affects the location of polluting firms,which proves that,“pollution haven” effect exists somehow;the impact of environmental regulation on industrial location is “heterogeneous both spatially and across industry”;I also find that,the location of different types of polluting industries subject to different types of environment regulation is also inconsistent.At last,based on calculation of GTFP,I modify EKC in order to estimate effects of polluting industry distribution and environmental regulation on GTFP.Considering undesirable output,a non-oriented,non-radial SBM output model is introduced to calculate regional GTFP: GRP as desirable output,SO2,COD,solid waste and CO2 as undesirable output.The result shows that,compared with the traditional method of C2 R in calculating TFP,scores of GTFP are lower and each score ranking by two type of productivity changed for the same region.Tobit regression with panel data model shows that the impacts of polluting industry distribution(measured by polluting industry density,PID)and environmental regulation on GTFP are significant.Stringent environmental regulation can enhance GTFP;the U-shaped relationship between PID and GTFP was statistically significant: regions at low PID,GTFP increases with decreasing concentration of PID,and this trend inversed comes to regions with high PID.The interaction coefficient between environment regulation and PID is significantly negative,this relationship graphically discover that there is a regulatory “blind spot” within a certain range of PID levels;within this PID range,GTFP in these regions with released environmental regulation is higher.Except this regulation blind spot,both kinds of regions with lower or higher PID,the GTFP with stringent environmental regulation is higher.In this thesis,I construct a NSE framework to explain and empirical test effects of polluting industry distribution and environmental regulation on GTFP.It tries to extend the power of NSE theory in explaining economic development with environmental problems.A new concept of economic growth quality concerning environment—GTFP,would be more suitable to reflect the quality of sustainable development,so that GTFP may become more meaningful to the future policies of industry distribution and environmental regulation.