Abstract
The relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution has long been a controversial topic. However, simply the detection of the existence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is not enough to understand how economic growth induced environmental pollution. This study investigated the path and mechanism of the effect of economic growth on the emission of two types of environmental pollutants, that is, industrial smoke and dust and sulfur dioxide, by using a structural equation model and a sample of 283 prefecture-level cities in China in 2005 and 2015. The research results show that economic growth exerted both direct and indirect effects on the emission of the two environmental pollutants. In addition to a direct impact through the economic scale effect, economic growth also indirectly impacted the two environmental pollutants emissions through three mediators, that is, industrial structure, technological innovations and environmental regulations. For different pollutants, the effect paths of economic growth on their emission showed both similarities and differences. First, with regards to industrial smoke and dust emissions and sulfur dioxide emissions, the effects of economic growth on the amount of these two emissions through environmental regulations and the industrial structure were negative inhibitory effects and positive promoting effects, respectively. This means that in prefectural-level cities in China, environmental regulation factors have produced some effects in reducing the emissions of these two pollutants while the industrial structure (level of industrialization) can increase the emissions of these two pollutants. However, the effect strength of these two paths shows a gradual weakening. Second, these two paths differ in effect strength and its changes. The positive promoting effects of the industrial structure on pollutant emission are significantly higher than the inhibitory effects of environmental regulation. In addition, our study also found that the direct impact path of economic growth on environmental pollution also passed significance testing, particularly in 2015. This shows that other reasons affect pollutant emission, such as system factors, spatial migration of industries and so forth.
Highlights
China has become the largest economic body in Asia and the second largest in the world after 40 years of rapid economic growth since the implementation of the reform and opening up policy
Using a structural equation model and 283 prefecture-level cities in China as a sample, we quantitatively analyzed the path and mechanism through which the economic growth of 2005 and 2015 directly or indirectly affected environmental pollution and we explored the structural causes of environmental pollution
We investigated the direct effect of urban economic growth on environmental pollution and the indirect effect through mediators
Summary
China has become the largest economic body in Asia and the second largest in the world after 40 years of rapid economic growth since the implementation of the reform and opening up policy. The emissions of pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates, are present at a high level in China. China has become one of the most polluted regions in the world [2] and the past 40 years of economic growth have incurred a high cost of environmental pollution. As the two major engines of rapid economic growth, industrialization and urbanization are considered the major reasons for environmental pollution. Urban development has benefited from the rapid growth of industrialization and urbanization has provided numerous production factors for industrialization. Pollutant emissions from industrialization have made urban regions the most polluted geospatial units
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