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Does environmental protection promote economic development? From the perspective of coupling coordination between environmental protection and economic development

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Abstract

Environmental protection and economic development seem to be controversial, and there have been opposite views for a long time. Hence, in this article, representative indicators of economy and environment are selected to analyze the external correlation and the internal relationship between environment and economy from the perspective of coupling coordination. The results show that environmental protection may slow down economic growth in the short term. However, their correlation becomes increasingly stronger with higher degree of coupling, and as the result in the long run, environmental protection can gradually improve the infrastructure of economic development, and environmental and economic development will become more closely coordinated in promoting green economic development. It is demonstrated that an effective way to promoting economic development is to promote scientific and technological innovation and cultivate high-end talents and improve regional cooperation, which can reduce the negative effect of environmental protection on economic development. It is also necessary to enhance the positive impact of environmental protection on economic development by transforming the mode of economic development, developing the environmental protection industry, and raising people’s awareness of environmental protection. Thus, the coupling coordination between environment and economy can sustain, with both continuously bolstered.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the case company for permitting and supporting this research.

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71263040, 71850410541, 91546117), Humanities and social sciences research project of the Ministry of Education (20YJAZH096), the Key Project of National Social and Scientific Fund Program in China (grant numbers 18ZDA052 and17BGL142), the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (Grant number 2017r101), and the Key Project of Jiangsu Provincial Productivity Society (grant number JSSCL2019B016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, People’s Republic of China

    Benhong Peng & Xin Sheng

  2. Binjiang College, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 214105, People’s Republic of China

    Benhong Peng

  3. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Pembroke, NC, 28372, USA

    Guo Wei

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  1. Benhong Peng
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  2. Xin Sheng
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  3. Guo Wei
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Correspondence to Benhong Peng or Xin Sheng.

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Peng, B., Sheng, X. & Wei, G. Does environmental protection promote economic development? From the perspective of coupling coordination between environmental protection and economic development. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 39135–39148 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09871-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09871-1

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