The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On The Industrial International Competitiveness

Since the 1970s, more and more countries have been aware of the importance of environment protection and started to set their environmental standards for the sustainable development. The impacts of the environmental regulation on the industrial international competitiveness have become one of important factors for policy makers, which has been more and more concerned by scholars. Until now, the academic has not yet reached an agreement on this issue. Though the theoretical analyses inclined to the conclusion that the higher-level environmental regulation would weaken the industrial international competitiveness, most empirical analyses consider there is no significant correlation between them. Furthermore, some of them even came to the opposite side. If we can prove that higher-level environmental regulation do not reduce the international competitiveness of the industry, and even can enhance the international competitiveness of industry in the long-term, China should take an action to establish environment policies for sustainable development. That could be beneficial for both environmental protection and the international competitiveness of the industry.Since the domestic researches on the issue are still in the initial stage, the paper tries to do some exploratory research on both theoretical and empirical research. In the theoretical part, the author summarizes the paths of the impacts of environmental regulation on the international competitiveness and analyses the effects of the environmental regulation on the mechanism of green technical innovation. The theoretical conclusion is that environmental regulation has the negative impact on the industrial international competitiveness in the near future. However, with the green technical innovation factor is stimulated in the long term, the higher level environmental regulation is, the stronger the international competitiveness will be. As for the empirical part, the author sets up a comprehensive index that measures the level of environmental regulation and does a correlation analysis on the industrial international competitiveness. Finally it comes the conclusion that environmental regulation will not necessarily reduce the international competitiveness at present. Comprehending previous analysis, based on perspective of the impacts of environmental regulation on the industrial international competitiveness, this paper considers that we should take the policy of sustainable development unswervingly. Meanwhile, we should try to stimulate positive impact of environmental regulation on industrial international competitiveness as far as possible.