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Does manufacturing agglomeration promote or hinder green development efficiency? Evidence from Yangtze River Economic Belt, China

  • Low Emission Development Strategies and Sustainable Development Goals
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Abstract

Sustainable development can be mainly achieved by promoting the green transformation and development of the world economy and by improving the efficiency of regional green development, which often receive extensive attention from the academia. This paper uses a spatial econometric model to estimate the impact of manufacturing agglomeration on green development efficiency based on the panel data of China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). The results show an overall large gap of green development efficiency between regions in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, mostly due to the extremely uneven development of green development efficiency in the upper reaches. Opposite to the middle and lower reaches, manufacturing agglomeration in the upper reaches of the YREB improves green development efficiency. Manufacturing agglomeration is conducive to the improvement of green development efficiency in adjacent areas. Nonetheless, it may hinder green development efficiency by inhibiting green technological innovation. This paper provides empirical evidence and policy implications for applying manufacturing agglomeration to promote green development efficiency in accordance with local conditions.

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Data availability

The data in this paper comes from the China City Statistical Yearbook and the China Economic Net Statistical Database.

Notes

  1. The raw data comes from the 2020 China Statistical Yearbook.

  2. According to the current education system in China, the education level of employees can be roughly divided into primary school, junior high school, high school, and higher education. Various types of years of education are defined as 6 years of primary school, 9 years of junior high school, 12 years of high school, and 16 years of higher education.

  3. The total population of urban employment is the sum of the number of employees in urban units at the end of the year and the number of employees in urban private units.

  4. http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2014-09/25/content_9092.htm

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Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (72103205) and Ministry of Education in China Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (21YJC790150).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Industrial Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing, 100006, China

    Huaxi Yuan

  2. School of Economics, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, 430073, China

    Huaxi Yuan

  3. Department of Modern & Classical Language Studies, Kent State University, Kent, 44240, USA

    Longhui Zou

  4. School of Economic & Management, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, China

    Yidai Feng

  5. College of Economics and Management, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Lei Huang

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  1. Huaxi Yuan
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  2. Longhui Zou
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  3. Yidai Feng
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  4. Lei Huang
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Contributions

This collaboration work was carried out by all the authors. Huaxi Yuan contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Huaxi Yuan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Huaxi Yuan and Longhui Zou. Yidai Feng supervised and reviewed the manuscript. Lei Huang provided critical review. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Huaxi Yuan.

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Highlights

• How manufacturing agglomeration (MA) affects green development efficiency (GDE).

• MA would hinder the improvement of GDE in China’s YREB.

• MA would hinder the improvement of GDE by inhibiting green technological progress.

• There is a significant regional heterogeneity in the impact of MA on GDE.

• MA has a positive spillover on the GDE of adjacent areas.

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Yuan, H., Zou, L., Feng, Y. et al. Does manufacturing agglomeration promote or hinder green development efficiency? Evidence from Yangtze River Economic Belt, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 81801–81822 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20537-y

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