Research On The Impact Of Economic Agglomeration And Technological Innovation On Carbon Intensity

With the acceleration of industrialization,the integrated construction of urban agglomeration has made new progress gradually,and the spatial pattern of urbanization in China has been further optimized.From point to area,this spatial agglomeration process has become the basic manifestation and endogenous motive force of China’s regional economic synergistic development.The continuous concentration of population and economic activities brings the advantage of economic agglomeration,but also leads to increasingly serious environmental pollution.The current carbon emission situation is unprecedented severe,and China faces increasing pressure of carbon emission reduction.Technological innovation is an important indicator affecting economic and social development and greenhouse gas emissions,as well as a key driver of low-carbon development.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the role of economic agglomeration and technological innovation in the impact of carbon intensity,which is crucial to the realization of China’s green transformation development.In this context,we first clarify the specific impact and mechanism of economic agglomeration and technological innovation on carbon intensity from the theoretical level,and put forward corresponding research hypotheses,and then carries out empirical tests from the following aspects.Firstly,based on the panel data of China’s 30 provincial-level regions over 2005-2019,we conduct spatial correlation analysis,and investigate the internal relationship between economic agglomeration,technological innovation and carbon intensity at different stages based on spatial lag model.Secondly,in order to explore the influence mechanism of economic agglomeration and technological innovation on carbon intensity,we construct the mediation effect model to verify the role of technological innovation acts as an intermediary variable,and further analyze the spatial spillover effects of economic agglomeration and technological innovation on carbon intensity.The results show that:（1）Economic agglomeration has an inverted u-shaped nonlinear effect on carbon intensity.When the level of economic agglomeration is lower than a certain critical value,the output expansion effect caused by agglomeration plays a dominant role and the carbon emissions increase.When the level of economic agglomeration is higher than the critical value,the positive externalities of agglomeration such as labor sharing,economies of scale and knowledge spillover emerge and begin to show significant carbon emission reduction effects.（2）Technological innovation has an inverted u-shaped nonlinear effect on carbon intensity.When the technological innovation level is lower than a certain critical value,the initial technological progress will cause energy rebound effect,resulting in more carbon emissions.When the technological innovation level is higher than the critical value,and the “green bias” feature of technologies gradually appears,and the energy efficiency is greatly improved,which begins to show an inhibitory effect on carbon intensity.（3）We successively selected per capita carbon emissions and patent applications per million people as substitute indicators to conduct robustness tests,and found that economic agglomeration and technological innovation have a robust inverted u-shaped nonlinear effect on carbon intensity.In addition,carbon emissions caused by production activities are easier to control than those caused by daily consumption of residents.（4）Economic agglomeration can affect carbon emissions through technological innovation,that is,technological innovation acts as an intermediary variable.This mediation effect presents nonlinear characteristics,and the specific mechanism is as follows: when the level of economic agglomeration is low,technological innovation will be inhibited and carbon intensity will rise;When the level of economic agglomeration exceeds a certain critical value,it will promote technological innovation,which is conducive to carbon emission reduction.（5）Both economic agglomeration and technological innovation have positive spatial spillover effects on carbon intensity.This indicates that in the long run,when economic agglomeration and technological innovation reach the mature stage,they will not only significantly reduce the local carbon intensity,but also inhibit the carbon emission of neighboring provinces and cities,which is mainly due to the imitation competition between regions,factor flow and economic correlation effect.On the basis of the above analysis,we put forward some suggestions to promote regional low-carbon development: Improve the spatial concentration of economic activities and,and vigorously develop urban agglomeration economy;Vigorously carry out technological innovation and improve energy efficiency;Strengthening regional coordination of carbon emission reduction;Carbon emission control should be in proper sequence.