Economic Growth And Atmospheric Pollution

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up,China’s sustained and rapid economic growth has attracted worldwide attention.In 2017,China’s per capita gross domestic product（GDP）reached$9,000.According to the current World Bank standards,China has become an upper,middle and upper income country,no longer far away from high-income countries.However,in this process of development,the speed of economic growth and environmental carrying capacity are not balanced,and environmental pollution,especially air pollution,is becoming increasingly prominent.How to realize the sustainable development mode of high economic growth and low atmospheric pollution is an urgent task for China’s development.The purpose of this paper is to study the two-way relationship between economic growth and atmospheric pollution,and to find out whether EKC exists between economic growth and atmospheric pollution in China,as well as the influencing mechanism and path between them.In the existing literature on economic growth and environmental pollution,the traditional industrial air pollution emission data are mostly used as environmental pollution indicators.According to the inter-provincial panel data,the unilateral impact of economic growth on air pollution is studied.Few related studies use urban panel data to study the two-way impact between economic growth and air pollution.With the focus of the society on air pollution,air pollution indicators have been published scientifically and accurately in recent years.In order to adapt to the new era background and ensure the research value,this paper starts from China’s actual economic and environmental conditions,uses quantitative research methods to analyze the interaction and feedback mechanism between environment and economic growth,and finds out the performance of urban atmospheric environmental quality.The internal mechanism of transformation.Firstly,the article combs the existing literature,then elaborates the internal influence mechanism between the two,studies the two-way influence between the two under different pollution pollutants from a macro perspective,and puts forward hypothesis.Secondly,a simultaneous equation model of economic growth and air pollution is constructed,and two sets of panel data containing the latest major air pollution indicators are selected.The average air pollution concentrations of SO₂,NO₂and PM10 in 104 cities from 2003 to 2016 and PM2.5,CO and O₃ in 30 provincial capitals（including 4 municipalities directly under the Central Government,excluding Lasa）from 2013 to 2017 are taken as the major ones.The three-stage least squares method（3SLS）is used to estimate the simultaneous equation model,analyze the shape of EKC curves of different pollutants in China,investigate the mechanism of environmental quality change,verify the hypothesis,and finally summarize and put forward the policy recommendations for the coordinated development of air pollution quality and economy.The empirical results show that the six kinds of air pollutants all conform to the"inverted U"relationship of environmental EKC,and the degree of interaction between each air pollutant and economic growth is different.The concentrations of SO₂,PM10,CO and O₃ have crossed the inflection point and are in the right half of the EKC curve,which indicates that the treatment of point-source air pollutants in China has achieved good results in recent years,and between them and economic growth.Coordination is increasing;the air pollution of NO₂ and PM2.5 has not crossed the inflection point,and is still in the left half of EKC curve,that is,the air pollution situation tends to aggravate with economic growth.At the same time,based on the indicators of public infrastructure policy,industrial structure,population density,foreign direct investment,traffic conditions and precipitation,this paper makes an empirical analysis of the two-way impact of economic growth and environmental pollution,and gives policy recommendations on how to improve urban air quality.It has important reference value for urban air pollution control,economic policy formulation and sustainable development planning design.