The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Technological Innovation

Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up,the economy has grown rapidly.The rapid economic growth has promoted the formation and development of industrial agglomeration,especially the concentration of industry.Industrial agglomeration has also played an active role in promoting technological innovation by making use of the knowledge spillover effect while further promoting the rapid growth of the national economy.However,with the large-scale expansion of industry,it has inevitably brought about problems such as environmental pollution.In order to achieve a green and sustainable economic growth,the country or region has formulated a series of environmental regulatory policies on environmental pollution.From December 18 to 24,2017,the Central Economic Work Conference has been held in Beijing.The conference has deployed economic work for 2018,many of them involve environmental protection.Accelerate the ecological and ecological civilization,focusing on the development of high quality is one of the eight key tasks proposed.Visible,the state's attention to environmental issues reached a new height.At this stage,academics are also increasingly concerned about environmental issues.The environmental regulation policies formulated for environmental pollution belong to the category of social regulation.The implementation of environmental regulations has forced industrial enterprises to bear the additional costs of environmental regulation and increase the burden on enterprises.On the one hand,some high-efficiency and low-efficiency industrial enterprises have to shut down or even eventually withdraw from the industry due to overburdened,which affects the concentration of enterprises.On the other hand,some industrial enterprises with similar strengths are actively seeking to minimize the cost of environmental regulations in the face of regulations.As a result,the environmental regulatory policies formulated and implemented for environmental pollution will inevitably have an impact on the concentration of industrial enterprises.The environmental regulation policy formulated for environmental pollutionbelongs to the category of social regulation.According to the porter theory,the implementation of environmental regulation will force technological innovations in regulated industrial enterprises.The implementation of environmental regulations will also make industrial enterprises forced to bear the additional costs of environmental regulation.On the one hand,this additional cost has caused some companies to close down or even eventually withdraw from the industry,affecting the degree of corporate concentration;on the other hand,some enterprises with similar strengths share public pollution control facilities through further concentration and reduce costs.Then,when the government formulates environmental policies,it must pay close attention to the impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation,and the role that industrial agglomeration plays in the process of environmental regulation affecting technological innovation.According to the definition of mediator variables,industrial agglomeration meets the mediating effect when environmental regulation affects technology innovation,environmental regulation affects industrial agglomeration,and industrial agglomeration affects technological innovation.However,whether industrial agglomeration is the intermediary variable of environmental regulation and influences technological innovation needs to be empirically tested.Therefore,this article will explore and test the impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation and the mediating effects of industrial agglomeration in this process.Based on the “Porter Hypothesis” theory,industrial agglomeration theory and the“Pollution Shelter” Hypothesis,this paper uses industrial agglomeration as an intermediary variable to study the transmission mechanism of environmental regulation impact on technology innovation,and applies China's 30 provinces and cities from 2003 to 2015.The industrial data of autonomous regions(except Tibet,Hong Kong,Macao,and Taiwan)established a dynamic panel model and used TSLS estimates to conduct empirical tests.The empirical results show that the increase of environmental regulation intensity can obviously promote industrial agglomeration and technological innovation,especially for technological innovation.It proves thatindustrial agglomeration does play a role as a mediator in the process of environmental regulation impacting technological innovation,and it is a non-complete intermediary,that is,environmental regulation can directly affect technological innovation on the one hand,and influence technology innovation indirectly by affecting industrial agglomeration.The robustness test proved that the regression results of the original equation were basically reliable.Finally,from the three aspects of environmental regulation,technological innovation and industrial agglomeration,put forward corresponding suggestions: appropriately improve the intensity of environmental regulation;increase financial support for technological innovation,and actively guide the industry to a moderate concentration.