Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Green Total Factor Productivity In The Yellow River Basin

On September 18,2019,General Secretary Xi Jinping hosted a symposium on ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin in Zhengzhou.The ecological protection and high-quality development strategy of the Yellow River Basin has become one of the major development strategies of China's regional economy.In recent years,with the gradual increase in the development of the Yellow River Basin,the balance of economy and ecological environment has been destroyed,restricting the high-quality development of the basin.Green total factor productivity(GTFP)can reflect the coordinated development of economy and environment.Improving GTFP is the key to the implementation of ecological protection and high-quality development strategies.Using the data of 59 prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2011 to 2018,the DEM-SBM-GML model was used to calculate the GTFP of each city,and the green total factor productivity was decomposed to explore the source of the increase in GTFP.Based on the concept of basin spatial management,a differentiated analysis of the upper,middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin is carried out.The entropy method is used to calculate the comprehensive intensity index of the environmental regulation of each city as a core variable to measure the intensity of the environmental regulation of each city.A panel Tobit model was constructed to analyze the impact of environmental regulations on the GTFP of the entire river basin,upstream regions,midstream regions,and downstream regions.The study found that the intensity of environmental regulations in the Yellow River Basin is gradually increasing,with the highest intensity of environmental regulations in the downstream areas,followed by the middle reaches.The basin has achieved green economic growth as a whole,and the GTFP of most cities exceeds 1,and the effect of green technology progress is the driving factor of GTFP.Environmental regulations have promoted the improvement of GTFP in the whole river basin,upstream areas and middle reaches,but the impact of environmental regulations on GTFP in downstream areas is not significant.Breakthroughs in environmental regulation follow cost effects and trigger technological innovation and industrial restructuring.The "Porter Hypothesis" has been verified in the Yellow River Basin.Due to the differences in the regional development of the Yellow River Basin,each basin should select reasonable regulatory tools according to the economic and environmental status quo,and adopt appropriate environmental regulatory intensity.Adjust the factor structure,increase investment in human capital,solve the problem of inefficient use of capital,strengthen market economy reform,create a good business environment,and strengthen financial innovation and financial supervision.Through a number of effective measures,promote the realization of green economic growth in the basin.