Environmental Regulation,Regional Total Factor Productivity And Manufacturing Industry Agglomeration

In recent years,with the rapid development of the economy,the problems of ecological environment have become increasingly prominent,and the bottleneck of the environment has become more and more prominent.With the continuous deterioration of the ecological environment,the state strongly advocates the construction of ecological civilization,and the level of environmental regulation of enterprises by the central and local governments is also constantly improving.It is of great significance to deal with the contradiction between economic development and environmental protection and to coordinate the development of the two.Most scholars at home and abroad have studied the impact of environmental regulation on industrial agglomeration based on different theories such as neoclassical economics and new economic geography.From the perspective of “new” new economic geography,this paper studies the impact of environmental regulation on total factor productivity and then on the manufacturing industry agglomeration,and explores the new mechanism of environmental regulation on the industrial agglomeration of manufacturing industry.Firstly,through the analysis of the development history and current situation of environmental regulation and the geographical and industrial dimensions of manufacturing industry agglomeration,it is found that the intensity of environmental regulation in most regions of China is on the rise;Secondly,by comparing the environmental regulation with the manufacturing industry agglomeration of the six provinces,it is found that there is a certain correlation between environmental regulation and manufacturing industry agglomeration;In addition,this paper analysis the theoretical mechanism from the three perspectives,which is environmental regulation and regional total factor productivity,environmental regulation and manufacturing industry agglomeration,environmental regulation and regional total factor productivity and manufacturing industry.Finally,the median effect model test and panel threshold model test are carried out using the data of 30 provinces in China from2006 to 2016.The results show that: First,environmental regulation has a“U”-type impact on the regional total factor productivity.With the 10% increase in environmental regulations,regional total factor productivity increases by2.45%.Second,environmental regulation will affect the manufacturing industry agglomeration.Currently,the “pollution shelter hypothesis” still exists in China.Third,regional total factor productivity has a partial mediating effect in the process of environmental regulation on the manufacturing industry agglomeration.In addition,environmental regulations have a threshold effect on the manufacturing industry agglomeration.When the environmental regulation intensity is less than 0.171,environmental regulation inhibits the manufacturing industry agglomeration.When the environmental regulation intensity is greater than 0.171,environmental regulation promotes the manufacturing industry agglomeration.Based on the above research results,this paper believes that the government can improve the implementation of environmental regulations,and promote the agglomeration and development of the manufacturing industry.At the same time,the government should focus on creating a good environment for innovation,supplemented by environmental innovation subsidies and other policies,actively promote enterprises to carry out technological innovation and enhance the total factor productivity of enterprises,giving full play to the mediating effect of total factor productivity on the impact of environmental regulation on manufacturing industry agglomeration.In addition,the government should break the concept of local protection to promote the development of enterprises,and ultimately promote the agglomeration and development of manufacturing.