An Empirical Study Of Relationship Between Economic Growth,Environmental Pollution And Environmental Protection Investment In China

Since the Reform and Opening-up 40 years ago,China's economy has developed rapidly,and China's economic quality continuously improves.In recent years,the environment quality has been improved,and the discharge of various pollutants has been reduced.The environmental protection investment is a financial input to control environmental pollution,strengthen environmental protection infrastructure construction and promote the development of environmental protection industry.It has played a useful role in economic growth and pollution control.However,under the new situation,China's economic growth is facing new internal and external factors.Water pollution,haze pollution and other new or difficult to control pollution is still serious.The amount of environmental protection investment is huge,but the efficiency of emission reduction is not high enough.In this situation,the 19 th National Congress of CPC proposed some directions and requirements for China's future development.Such as strengthening Ecological Civilization Construction,implementing the Concept of Green Development and promoting high-quality economic development.This paper studies the relationship between economic growth,environmental pollution and environmental protection investment,and summarizes relevant conclusions and putting forward corresponding policy suggestions.It is meaningful for promoting the sustainable development of economy and environment,and improving the efficiency of environmental protection investment.Firstly,this paper analyzes the correlation between economic growth,environmental pollution and environmental protection investment,and summarizes the existing literature research results.Secondly,this paper interprets Endogenous Economic Growth Model,Externality Theory,Public Goods Theory and Sustainable Development Theory,which will be use to build the theoretical basis and theoretical model.Thirdly,this paper uses data of 30 provinces in China during the period 2003-2016 to empirically studies the relationship and spatial effect between economic growth,environmental pollution and environmental protection investment through endogenous test,spatial autocorrelation test and spatial simultaneous equation model.Then,the total pollution emissions are divided into industrial and living fields.This paper analyzes the environmental protection investment's effect on different pollutants such as COD,SO2 and smoke dust.This paper also analyzes the pollution emission reduction effect in the overall,industrial and living fields.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)economic growth,environmental pollution and environmental protection investment are interacted and influenced each other.There exists endogenous relation between the three.(2)All of three have spatial effects.Regional economy develops in coordination,but regional pollution is also serious,and there exist “free-rider” phenomenon in the environmental protection investment between local governments.(3)The environmental protection investment has a certain effect on the overall discharge of COD,SO2 and smoke dust.And the treatment effect for SO2 is the most obvious,while COD and smoke dust are not significant enough.The treatment effect on living COD and living SO2 are obvious.It is effective on industrial SO2,but the effect is not significant enough.The treatment effect of industrial COD,industrial smoke dust and living smoke dust are not obvious.Therefore,corresponding policy suggestions are as follows:(1)Continue to promote the Ecological Civilization Construction,promote high-quality economic development,and constantly realize the harmonious and unified relationship between economic growth and environmental protection.(2)Increase environmental protection investment,and expand the sources of capital input.We should exert the role of environmental protection investment in promoting economic growth and pollution reduction.(3)Optimize the structure of environmental protection investment,increase the investment in treatment of industrial pollution sources,and increase the proportion of effective funds for pollution control.So that environmental protection investment can produce significant governance effects on different pollutants and in different areas of pollutants.(4)Promote the Regional Coordinated Development Strategy,exert the driving role of regional economy,and promote the development of regional economy.(5)Improve the government assessment mechanism,encourage interregional efforts to control pollution,and promote the joint treatment of regional pollution.