| China’s economy grows rapidly and its economic strength has improved significantly.A moderately prosperous society in all respects has built as scheduled by2020 in China,but accompanying by an increase in pollutant emissions and resource consumption.In the new era,China’s economy has entered a stage of high-quality development.Green and low-carbon development is the only way for high-quality development.The negative externality of economic activities and public goods attribute of environment have caused environmental pollution.It is difficult to solve effectively ecological environment problems only relying on the market mechanism.Therefore,the government usually formulates environmental regulation policies to solve ecological environment problems and make up for market failure.Environmental regulation is a powerful way to make up for market failure and control environmental pollution.In the process of economic development,it is the key to solve the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development in China that how to use the least resource input and the least degree of adverse environmental impact to drive the sustainable growth of economic output and achieve the highest ecological efficiency.Whether and how environmental regulation affects regional ecological efficiency is an important issue.This paper systematically studies the mechanism and transmission path of environmental regulation on regional ecological efficiency in China from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.This study has important theoretical and practical significance to more effectively implement environmental regulation policies in the new development stage,practice the concept of “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”,solve the problems of resource shortage and environmental pollution,and realize regional sustainable development in China.Starting from the classical theories such as economic growth theory,market failure theory,environmental regulation theory,economic efficiency theory and “two mountains” theory,this paper systematically combs the research context and research progress of environmental regulation and ecological efficiency in domestic and foreign literature.Then,from the perspectives of direct effect and indirect effect,local effect and neighborhood effect,the direct mechanism of environmental regulation on regional eco-efficiency and the indirect transmission mechanism of environmental regulation on regional eco-efficiency through technological innovation,industrial structure and foreign direct investment are analyzed in detail theoretically.Then,it reviews the development of environmental regulation in China,analyzes the status quo of major environmental regulation policy tools,and measures the intensity of three types of regulation tools,namely command,market and voluntary,and comprehensive environmental regulation,based on the availability of data.The super-efficiency SBM model was used to measure provincial regional ecological efficiency,and GML index and input-output slack rate were combined to analyze the causes and improvement direction of ecological efficiency changes.Regional differences of ecological efficiency were analyzed based on Theil index,laying a foundation for subsequent empirical research.Then,based on the data of 30 provinces and autonomous regions in China from 2005 to 2018,we made an empirical of test the direct effects,indirect effects and spatial spillover effects of different types of environmental regulations on ecoefficiency at the national and regional levels,using Tobit panel model and spatial Durbin model as research methods.Finally,countermeasures and suggestions are put forward and the future research areas are prospected.The main conclusions of the study are as follows:(1)The regional eco-efficiency in China is at a low level but shows a steady upward trend as a whole.The spatial distribution pattern shows that the regional ecoefficiency in eastern region is higher than that in the central and western region,and in the western region is higher than the central region.There is a significant spatial correlation among the eco-efficiency of each province in China,and the eco-efficiency of each region is significantly positively affected by the neighboring region,showing the characteristic of “A glory all glory,as soon as damages all damages”.GML index decomposition shows that the eco-efficiency of eastern region has the fastest growth rate,followed by the central region,and has the slowest growth rate in the western region.Technological progress is the main factor driving the growth of regional ecoefficiency.Through the analysis of the root of low efficiency,the low eco-efficiency is mainly due to excessive consumption of ecological resources and excessive discharge of environmental pollutants.(2)From the national perspective,the direct impact of environmental regulation on regional ecological efficiency shows a U-shaped curve relationship of first suppressing and then promoting.In the sample period,comprehensive environmental regulation has crossed the inflection point of the curve,and has a positive promoting effect on the improvement of eco-efficiency.The effects of the three types of environmental regulations are heterogeneous.The command-based and voluntary environmental regulations have crossed the inflection point and promoted the improvement of ecological efficiency,while the market-based environmental regulations have not crossed the inflection point and inhibited the improvement of regional eco-efficiency.(3)By region,the direct impact of market-based environmental regulation on ecoefficiency is U-shaped,voluntary environmental regulation can promote eco-efficiency,and command-based environmental regulation has no significant impact in East China.The direct impact of command-based and market-based environmental regulation on eco-efficiency also shows a U-shaped relationship,which is located on the left side of the inflection point of the curve and has an inhibitory effect on eco-efficiency,while the impact of voluntary environmental regulations is not significant in Central China and West China.(4)The analysis of transmission channel shows that environmental regulation can indirectly affect regional eco-efficiency through technological innovation,industrial structure and foreign direct investment,and the influence degree is the greatest through technological innovation.Command-based environmental regulation can promote the improvement of regional eco-efficiency through technological innovation and foreign direct investment,while market-based and voluntary environmental regulation can only promote the improvement of regional eco-efficiency through technological innovation.Industrial structure is an important factor that significantly reduces regional ecoefficiency regardless of whether it is constrained by environmental regulation,indicating that environmental regulation has not yet been able to achieve low-carbon industrial structure.(5)Various kinds of environmental regulation can promote the eco-efficiency through technology innovation in East China.All kinds of environmental regulation can promote the eco-efficiency by foreign direct investment,and the command and voluntary environmental regulation can force industrial structure upgrading,and reverse the direction of industrial structure impact on the eco-efficiency in Central China and West China.(6)When considering spatial effect,the impact of environmental regulation on local eco-efficiency presents a U-shaped relationship,and the spillover effect is the opposite,that is,environmental regulation promotes firstly and then inhibits the ecoefficiency of neighboring areas in an inverted U-shaped relationship.In terms of types,the impact of command-type environmental regulation on local eco-efficiency shows a U-shaped relationship,and has a positive spillover effect on neighboring areas,showing the characteristics of partnership.The effect of market-based environmental regulation on local eco-efficiency is u-shaped,but the spillover effect on neighboring areas is opposite.Voluntary type has no significant impact on local and adjacent eco-efficiency,which may be due to the lack of environmental awareness of the public. |
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