The Impact Of Regional Environmental Synergistic Governance On The Economic Integration Of The Yangtze River Delta Region

The 20 th Party Congress report clearly proposed to coordinate industrial restructuring,pollution control,ecological protection,and climate change,and to sympathetically promote carbon reduction,pollution reduction,green expansion,and economic growth,ultimately realizing the promotion of ecological priority,conservation and intensive,green and low-carbon development.The construction of ecological civilization has undergone historic,transitional and global changes,and has entered a critical period of modernization to promote synergy and efficiency,economic and social development,and comprehensive green transformation.Regional environmental synergistic governance is a key issue in the development of China’s urban agglomeration in recent years,and regional economic integration is a necessary factor for high-quality development.The relationship between the two is intertwined and interacts with each other,and the correct handling of the relationship between regional environmental synergistic governance and regional economic integration is a major theoretical and practical issue in the new era to promote green development,build ecological civilization,and promote the harmonious coexistence of human and nature.Current studies have focused more on "local" environmental governance and its impact on the surrounding area,as well as the effectiveness of environmental synergistic pollution governance.The economic spillover effects of regional environmental governance policies are not explored.Especially in the current stage of promoting regional coordination and development.There is an urgent need to explore the relationship between regional environmental synergistic governance and regional economic integration to promote high-quality regional economic development.Based on the theoretical basis related to regional environmental synergistic governance and regional economic integration,city-level data from 2003 to 2019 were selected,and 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta city cluster were taken as the main research objects.Using methods such as generalized synthetic control method and spatial econometric model,the impact of regional environmental synergistic governance on the level of economic development and regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta is explored.The study further analyzed the mechanism of its effect from two perspectives of linkage and intermediation,and provided references for exploring the role of regional environmental synergistic governance in enhancing the regional economic integration of the Yangtze River Delta city cluster.The main research contents and conclusions are as following:First,in order to answer the question of the impact of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration,the regional economic growth effect and economic spatial spillover effect of regional environmental synergistic governance are examined from the perspective of regional environmental synergistic governance policy.A quasi-natural experiment was constructed to analyze the impact of the regional environmental synergistic governance policy on economic growth by taking the Yangtze River Delta Regional Synergistic Governance for Air Pollution Prevention and Control as the assessment object in 2014.The impact of the Yangtze River Delta regional environmental synergistic governance policy on regional economic growth and regional heterogeneity were also investigated.The study found that the Yangtze River Delta regional environmental synergistic governance policy significantly promoted regional economic growth in the process of efficient pollution control.In order to enhance the validity of the findings,placebo test and robustness test are used in turn to show the robustness of the results.At the same time,the spatial spillover effect of regional environmental synergistic governance was analyzed based on a spatial econometric model,and it was found that regional environmental synergistic governance showed a significant incentive effect on the economic development level of neighboring cities,which promoted regional economic development of high quality and boosted regional economic integration.Second,in order to answer the question of the degree of influence of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration,the overall and spatial impact effects of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration are empirically analyzed from the degree of implementation of regional environmental synergistic governance.(1)The idea of gravity model is introduced into the study of regional economic integration and regional environmental synergistic governance in the Yangtze River Delta,and the active and passive synergistic environmental governance and the active and passive regional economic integration are proposed.A panel regression model and a spatial Durbin model were used to analyze the direct effects and spatial spillover effects of the degree of synergy on the impact of regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta.It was found that the degree of regional environmental synergy governance significantly enhanced the degree of regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta and had significant spatial spillover effects.(2)The heterogeneous effects of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration were analyzed by measuring the degree of regional economic integration by GDP and GDP per capita,respectively.It was found that the symmetry characteristic of stronger influence of active synergy degree on the degree of active regional economic integration and stronger influence of passive synergy degree on the degree of passive regional economic integration still exists in space.Third,in order to answer the question of how regional environmental synergistic governance affects regional economic integration,the impact mechanism of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta is empirically tested from the perspective of the linkage effect mechanism and the intermediary effect mechanism.(1)The interaction effect model is used to explore the linkage mechanisms of FDI and fiscal decentralization on the impact of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration.The results found that the linkage effect based on FDI positively stimulates the degree of the effect of regional environmental synergistic governance on the development of regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta,showing a significant differential spillover effect in space,with the greatest enhancement under the path of geographical proximity as the spatial spillover.The linkage effect of the degree of fiscal decentralization significantly hinders the impact of regional environmental synergistic governance on the development of regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta,and has a differential spatial effect on regional economic integration in space,with the largest impact coefficient and its strongest indirect effect under the weight matrix of spatial adjacency.(2)The mediating effect model was used to investigate the mediating mechanism of regional environmental synergistic governance – R&D-regional economic integration and regional environmental synergistic governance-industrial restructuring-regional economic integration.It was found that R&D could act as a mediating variable for regional environmental synergistic governance to promote regional economic integration,and the mediating effect in space showed a heterogeneous impact,promoting positive spillover to geographically distant neighboring cities.The mediating effect of industrial restructuring is also significant,which can enhance the incentive effect of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration,but the indirect effect does not pass the significance test.The comprehensive study finds that industrial restructuring is the most important mediating transmission path for regional environmental synergistic governance to influence regional economic integration.Through a review of existing research theories,a theoretical analysis framework is established to explain the impact of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration.The active and passive behaviors of regional economic integration and regional environmental synergistic governance are discussed from the perspective of local government behavior,and new research perspectives are provided.The effects and mechanisms of regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta region are analyzed from the dual perspectives of the effectiveness and extent of implementation of regional environmental synergistic governance policies.The mechanism of regional environmental synergistic governance influences the development of regional economic integration is explored in terms of the linkage mechanism and intermediary transmission mechanism.The findings of the study help to promote the development of regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta region based on regional environmental synergistic governance.The marginal contribution is mainly reflected in three aspects.First,we analyze the differences in the economic growth effects and synergy of the Yangtze River Delta Regional Synergistic Governance for Air Pollution Prevention and Control on regional economic integration from the perspective of both the implementation effect and the degree of implementation of regional environmental synergistic governance policies.In addition,we analyze the impact mechanism of regional environmental synergistic governance on the regional economic integration of the Yangtze River Delta region through theoretical and empirical evidence.Secondly,we explore the active and passive behaviors of regional environment synergistic governance on regional economic integration from the perspective of local governments’ behavioral choices,and analyze more deeply the spatial and temporal effects of heterogeneous synergy on the degree of heterogeneous regional economic integration.Finally,the influence mechanism of regional environmental synergistic governance on regional economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta is analyzed from the mechanism of linkage effect and the mechanism of intermediary effect respectively,which enriches the existing research system.