The Impact Of Human Capital On Government Environmental Inputs

To achieve a Chinese modernization in which human and nature live together in harmony,we need to increase ecological protection.This is inseparable from the improvement of the environmental governance system and the improvement of the environmental governance capacity.At the same time,the public and enterprises should also be more widely involved in ecological construction and environmental governance.The improvement of the system,the optimization of the governance concept,and the enhancement of environmental awareness all need the support of the continuous improvement of human capital level.Talent is the first resource,and is the key to promoting high-quality development in China.The level of human capital is not only related to innovation and growth,but also to the effectiveness of environmental governance.With the gradual improvement of human capital level in China,it is worth studying whether human capital has driven the environmental governance.This dissertation analyzes the impact of human capital on environmental governance in the following logical sequence.First,the impact of human capital on environmental governance is analyzed from the theoretical level.Second,based on the theoretical analysis,a three-part empirical study is launched.The relationship between the three parts is as follows: first,the impact and mechanism of human capital on government environmental governance inputs is analyzed;second,the impact of human capital on the spatial spillover effect of environmental governance investment among different cities is analyzed;finally,the impact of human capital on environmental governance investment is analyzed from the perspective of intra-city human capital agglomeration.The first part of the empirical analysis is the foundation,based on the results of the first part,the second part of the empirical analysis further analyzes the relationship between the human capital and environmental governance investment from the spillover effects between different cities,the third part of the empirical analysis selects a typical example of changing the level of human capital in a city-the establishment of a national high-tech zone-and focuses on the impact of human capital concentration within the city.Specifically,(1)using city-level panel data from 2006 to 2019 and the data from the 2004 World Bank China Enterprise Survey,this study analyzes the impact of human capital levels on the financial and time investment of government in environmental governance and the mechanisms at play through a two-way fixed effects model.(2)Since environmental governance has positive externalities,environmental governance investment may have spatial spillover effects.This study analyzes the spatial correlation of inter-city environmental governance investment through Moran index using city-level data.On this basis,the spatial Durbin model is used to analyze the spatial spillover effects of environmental governance investment,with a focus on the impact of human capital.(3)The establishment of a national high-tech zone is a typical event that significantly promotes intra-city human capital agglomeration in the short term,so this dissertation analyzes the impact of intra-city human capital agglomeration on environmental governance investment with the typical fact of human capital effect of the establishment of a national high-tech zone.First,the impact of national high-tech zone policy on human capital levels is analyzed by multi-temporal difference-in-difference method using city panel data.Second,the impact of changes in human capital levels on environmental governance investment is analyzed through the estimated policy effects of national high-tech zones.It is found that higher levels of human capital significantly contribute to increased government investment in environmental governance,and this effect affects government investment in environmental governance mainly through the level of regional informatization.In addition,the level of human capital also significantly increases the interaction time between local environmental protection departments and enterprises,and this role mainly affects the interaction between local environmental protection departments and enterprises indirectly through the total time of government-enterprise interaction.The heterogeneity analysis finds that human capital in the western region has the greatest contribution to government investment in environmental governance,while human capital has the least impact on eastern cities;human capital has a greater impact on investment in environmental governance in northern cities than in southern cities.In addition,analyzing the heterogeneity in terms of the administrative level of cities,environmental governance investment in non-capital cities is more significantly influenced by human capital.In terms of the spatial spillover effects of inter-city environmental governance investment,this dissertation finds that environmental governance investment has a significant positive spatial correlation nationally,but also a significant negative spatial correlation between certain cities locally.The decomposition results of the spatial effects show that despite the significant spatial correlation of environmental governance investment,human capital only significantly contributes to environmental governance investment in the region,and this finding suggests that human capital acts mainly from within cities.Based on this,this dissertation analyzes the impact of human capital on environmental governance investment under the policy effect with the help of the impact of national high-tech zone policy on human capital generated within the city.It is found that the establishment of national high-tech zones significantly increases the level of human capital in the cities where they are located,and the national high-tech zone policy promotes the increase of environmental governance investment through the human capital.Compared with established literature,the contribution of this dissertation is reflected in three aspects:First,the changes in government environmental governance inputs are analyzed from the perspective of human capital.Most of the existing literature on environmental governance focuses on the performance appraisal from central government and analyzes local environmental governance inputs from the promotion pressure of local government officials.This dissertation analyzes from the perspective of human capital,which enriches the research perspective of local government environmental governance inputs.Second,the impact of human capital on environmental governance is analyzed based on the human capital externality theory.At present,most domestic studies on human capital externalities have been conducted from the perspective of returns to education.According to the human capital externality theory,an increase in the average level of human capital effects all aspects of urban development.This dissertation analyzes the impact of increased human capital levels on environmental governance based on human capital externality theory,which is not only a supplement to environmental governance-related studies,but also a useful addition to the literature on human capital externalities.Third,this dissertation finds that higher levels of human capital significantly increase the financial investment and time investment in environmental governance of government.This finding has implications for the policy synergy between improving human capital levels and improving ecological environment to accelerate the goal of harmonious coexistence between human and nature.In addition,human capital plays a greater role in environmental governance investment in western cities,northern cities,and non-capital cities.Implying that human capital is of greater importance to cities with a lesser degree of development.The mechanism analysis found that human capital has not yet indirectly increased the environmental governance investment through increasing green innovation,which implies that the impact of increasing the level of human capital on the transformation of innovation structure toward green development has not yet played a significant role,and the guidance of green innovation needs to be continuously strengthened in the innovation field in the future.