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Effect of Environmental Regulation on High-quality Economic Development in China—An Empirical Analysis Based on Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model

Environmental Science and Pollution Research volume 28, pages 54661–54678 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

In 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the concept of high-quality economic development, indicating that the Chinese economy has shifted from rapid growth to high-quality development. High-quality economic development is the growth mode of an innovation-driven economy, an innovative, high-efficiency, energy-saving, environmentally friendly, and high-value-added growth mode. Environmental regulation is an important means to solve economic development and environmental pollution and plays an important role in high-quality economic development. In order to explore the impact of China’s environmental regulations on the high-quality economic development, this paper based on the panel data of 30 provinces (cities) in China from 2004 to 2015 uses the dynamic spatial Dubin model (DSDM) to analyze the direct and indirect effects of China’s environmental regulations on high-quality economic development and regional heterogeneity. It also incorporates R&D (Research and Development) investment, government investment in environmental governance, and fiscal decentralization into the model and analyzes the direct and indirect effects of the above three factors in the process of environmental regulation affecting high-quality economic development. We found that China’s high-quality economic development is spatially related between different provinces. And environmental regulations have obvious direct and indirect effects in the impact of high-quality economic development in the central and eastern regions, and this effect phenomenon is not significant in the western region. R&D investment, environmental protection investment, and fiscal decentralization have different adjustment effects on environmental regulation and high-quality economic development, and the same kind of adjustment variable also shows obvious heterogeneity among different regions. Finally, we put forward relevant policy recommendations based on the conclusions, with a view to improving China’s high-quality economic development.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. Article 41 of the Environmental Protection Law stipulates, “The pollution prevention and control facilities in construction projects shall be designed, built and commissioned along with the principal part of the project at the same time. The pollution prevention and control facilities shall meet the requirements specified in the approved documents regarding the environmental impact assignment and shall not be dismantled or left idle without authorization.”

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Affiliations

  1. College of Economics, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Yun Liu, Meng Liu & Pan An

  2. College of Economics, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430000, China

    Gege Wang

  3. Institute of Food and Strategic Reserves, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, Nanjing, 210000, China

    Lulu Zhao

Authors
  1. Yun Liu
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  2. Meng Liu
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  3. Gege Wang
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  4. Lulu Zhao
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  5. Pan An
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Contributions

Lulu Zhao constructed an environmental regulation indicator used in the manuscript; Gege Wang processed the financial data involved in the manuscript; Pan An sorted out some literatures and translated the articles into English; Yun Liu and Meng Liu analyzed and explained the empirical results and made relevant suggestions together, and they are the major contributors in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Meng Liu.

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Appendix 1: Robustness tests

Appendix 1: Robustness tests

Table 6 The impacts of environmental regulation and R&D investment on high-quality economic development
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Table 7 The impacts of environmental regulation and protection investment on high-quality economic development
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Table 8 The impacts of environmental regulation and fiscal decentralization on high-quality economic development
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Liu, Y., Liu, M., Wang, G. et al. Effect of Environmental Regulation on High-quality Economic Development in China—An Empirical Analysis Based on Dynamic Spatial Durbin Model. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 54661–54678 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13780-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13780-2

Keywords

  • Environmental regulation
  • High-quality economic development
  • Dynamic spatial Durbin model