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Environmental decentralization and green development: the mediating role of industrial upgrading

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Abstract

Green development is a comprehensive concept incorporating environmental protection, playing a vital role in industrial upgrading and economic transformation. Under the current national status of political centralization and fiscal decentralization, decentralized environmental governance exerts a noticeable impact on green development (GTFP). The direct, mediating mechanism, and the spillover effects of environmental decentralization (ED) on GTFP are examined according to 30 Chinese areas dataset from 2005 to 2019. We reveal that a significant negative impact of ED on GTFP. The mediating effect of industrial upgrading is found during impact of ED on GTFP process. Furthermore, with the rising ED of surrounding areas, the GTFP of its region will be weakened. Meanwhile, an overall negative spillover effect of ED on the GTFP of neighboring areas is confirmed. ED in eastern and central China negatively impact GTFP, and such impact in the western area is insignificant. The spillover effects are also heterogeneous.

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  1. See more details: https://www.ceads.net.cn/

  2. See more details: http://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202302/t20230228_1919011.html

  3. See more details: https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html

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Funding

The work is supported by Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of Universities of Anhui, “Environmental regulation and high-quality economic development in Anhui Province from the perspective of Yangtze River Delta integration: Spatial Durbin model analysis based on panel data of cities in the Yangtze River Delta” (SK2021A0919); Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of Universities of Anhui, “Research on the coupling and coordination of GTFP and industrial structure in the G60 science and technology innovation corridor of the Yangtze river delta” (2022AH052184).

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Wuhu Institute of Technology, Wuhu, 241003, China

    Fengjiao Wu, Wei Wang, Junguo Hong & Yanmin Pan

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  1. Fengjiao Wu
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  2. Wei Wang
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Contributions

Fengjiao Wu: conceptualization, project administration, methodology, writing — review and editing, writing — original draft, formal analysis, data curation. Junguo Hong: software, visualization, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing, formal analysis, validation, funding acquisition. Wei Wang: writing — review and editing, writing — original draft, conceptualization, methodology, supervision. Yanmin Pan: writing — review and editing, writing — original draft, formal analysis.

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Correspondence to Wei Wang.

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Wu, F., Wang, W., Hong, J. et al. Environmental decentralization and green development: the mediating role of industrial upgrading. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 99965–99978 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29321-y

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