| The rapid development of China's economy has made China the second largest economy in the world,creating a Chinese miracle that attracts worldwide attention.However,along with the great economic achievements,the extensive mode of development has brought heavy environmental costs.There has been a gradual deterioration of ecological environment and depletion of natural resources.The increasingly serious pollution has brought great environmental and climate risks to the society,and seriously jeopardized people's health and normal life.In order to solve the increasingly serious problem of environmental pollution,China has gradually shifted from "ONLY GDP" to sustainable development,and implemented stricter environmental regulation policies to deal with environmental pollution.Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012,environmental protection has received unprecedented attention.China's environmental protection has moved to a higher level.However,the implementation effect of some environmental regulation policies is still unsatisfactory in recent years.An important reason is local governments often adopt an "incomplete implementation" strategy.To compete for resources,local governments often loosen regulatory requirements on local companies through collusion.Since some local governments are worried that environmental regulation will hinder regional economic development,they see development in opposition to environmental protection.However,is the environmental improvement really at the expense of regional development? What is the relationship between emission reduction,economic growth and job security? The answers to these questions not only have certain reference value for local governments to correctly understand the policy effect of environmental regulation policies,but also have important practical significance for China's green and sustainable development and economic upgrading.Considering China's national conditions,this thesis analyses the economic effects of command-and-control environmental regulation policies(mainly focusing on the total emission control plan of major pollutants during the "11th Five-Year Plan" period and the "Action of Energy Conservation and Low Carbon for Ten Thousand Enterprises",two very important environmental regulation policies in recent years).In particular,this paper focuses on the impact of strict environmental regulation policies on urban manufacturing productivity,transformation and upgrading of urban manufacturing industry,employment.At the same time,we also analyze the mechanism of environmental regulation policies and heterogeneity.The main research contents and conclusions of this paper are as follows:In chapter 3,we study the causal relationship between environmental regulation and city manufacturing productivity from the perspective of firm dynamic.Based on the quasi-experiment of the “11th Five-Year National Total Emissions Control Plan of the Major Pollutants” in 2006,we investigate the impact of environmental regulation on the city economic efficiency in China by using the industrial sectors data and data of China City Statistical Yearbook from 2002 to 2008.Benchmark regression results show that compared with the cities with low emission reduction target,the TFP of the cities with high emission reduction target was 8.8% higher on average after the implementation of the policy.For every 1 ton of chemical oxygen demand to be reduced for every million yuan of output value in a city,TFP will significantly increase by 23.3%.The results have passed parallel trend test,placebo test and robustness test,indicating that the empirical results are robust and effective.In order to analyze the specific channels of environmental regulation,the dynamic Olley-Pakes method is further used to decompose the growth structure of city manufacturing productivity.Thus,we can find how environmental regulation policy affect regional economic efficiency through these four components.They are the intra-group effect representing the technological progress of the enterprise itself,the inter-group effect representing the change of resource allocation among enterprises,the entry effect representing the influence of new enterprises' entry behavior and the exit effect representing the influence of enterprises' exit behavior.We further combine the micro data to verify the mechanism at the city level and make a more in-depth analysis.We find that this policy significantly increased the intra-group effect and the entry effect,and significantly reduced the intergroup effect and the exit effect.This policy improves the TFP of surviving enterprises and hinder the entry of low-TFP enterprises.However,in the short term,it also leads to an increase in the exit ratio of high TFP companies and a decrease in the efficiency of resource allocation.Finally,this chapter examines the heterogeneity of policies through quantile regression,and finds that cities with low quantiles are more affected by policies.As the quantile increases,the policy effects gradually decrease.The policy has no significant impact to 70% and above.In chapter 4,based on the quasi-experiment of the “11th Five-Year National Total Emissions Control Plan of the Major Pollutants”,we investigate the impact of environmental regulation on the transformation and upgrading of urban manufacturing industry.Based on the perspective of green transformation of industrial structure and enterprise technology upgrading,this paper constructs data samples at enterprise,industry and city levels for empirical analysis by using the industrial sectors data and data of China City Statistical Yearbook from 2002 to 2008.We take the proportion of the added value of the clean industry in the total added value of the urban manufacturing industry as the measurement index of the industrial cleanliness,and the total factor productivity calculated by the ACF method as the measurement index of the technological upgrading of enterprises.The empirical results show that the environmental regulation policy improves the cleanliness of city manufacturing industry and firms' TFP.Thus,this environment regulation promotes the transformation and upgrading of urban manufacturing industry.For every 1 ton of chemical oxygen demand to be reduced for every million yuan of output value in a city,industrial cleanliness of manufacturing industry will significantly increase by 53.6% and enterprise productivity will significantly increase by 12.4%.The empirical results of this paper are still valid after identification tests and a series of robustness tests.On this basis,this chapter uses triple difference to analyze the mechanism of environmental regulation's influence on urban industrial cleanliness.The result of mechanism analysis shows that in the short term,the policy has not been innovation-driven,but achieved green transformation of urban manufacturing industry by adjusting factor allocation.At the same time,based on the perspective of government input and enterprise input,the mechanism of environmental regulation affecting enterprise technological upgrading is analyzed and found that the technological upgrading of enterprises mainly depends on the increase of government subsidies.There is no significant difference between the urban environmental protection input and the enterprise input before and after the policy.Finally,the results of heterogeneity analysis show that cities with high public supervision,small cities and cities with low environmental decentralization are more affected by this environmental regulation.In chapter 5,based on the quasi-experiment of the “Ten thousand enterprises to save energy and low-carbon” in 2006,we investigate the impact of environmental regulation on the employment by using the industrial sectors data and data of China City Statistical Yearbook from 2011 to 2013.Firstly,this chapter analyzes the impact of environmental regulations on employment at the enterprise level and finds that the environmental regulation policy has a significant negative impact on the employment of enterprises.Then we explore the mechanism of the environmental regulation policy affecting enterprise employment,and clarify that the policy will affect enterprise employment through "scale effect","factor substitution effect" and "technology effect".Since the environmental regulation policy requires enterprises to reduce overall energy consumption,and the implementation degree is very strict,enterprises reduce the production scale in order to meet the standards.Enterprises also actively improve production technology by installing emission-reduction equipment and increasing investment in research and development.By adopting new capital-intensive technologies,capital replaces labor.Besides,the heterogeneity of environmental regulation effects is investigated based on different regions,different ownership,different capital intensity and different scales.The results show that the environmental regulation policy has the least impact on the employment in the central region,followed by the eastern region,and has the greatest negative effect on the employment of enterprises in the western region.At the same time,enterprises with high capital intensity,state-owned enterprises and large-scale enterprises are relatively more negatively affected by this policy.Then,the overall effect of the environmental regulation policy is investigated at the urban level.The result suggests that this policy has a positive impact on the total employment of industrial enterprises in the city.Although the environmental regulation policy has squeezed out the employment of ten“thousand enterprises”,there is no negative effect at the overall level of the region.Thus,our results support the "double dividend hypothesis".Investigating the mechanism,it is found that not only the squeezed labor in "ten thousand enterprises" is transferred to non-ten thousand enterprises,but the environmental regulation policy also creates additional "green" jobs.Finally,this chapter analyzes the impact of the environmental regulation policy on the average salary of the enterprise employees.The empirical results show that after the implementation of the environmental regulation policy,the average salary of employees in enterprises with higher energy conservation targets has a higher increase.The environmental regulation does not cause the cost of emission reduction and pollution control to be passed on to employees,resulting in the loss of employees' welfare.Summarizing the full text,this article combines analysis at the city level,industry level,and enterprise level to systematically and comprehensively explore the policy impact and channels of environmental regulation.This article conducts an in-depth analysis of how environmental regulation affects the evolution of enterprises and then the important economic indicators of the region.This study can provide decision support for optimizing the design of environmental regulation policies and provide policy suggestions for promoting China's green and sustainable development and economic transformation and upgrading. |
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