Has “the Belt and Road initiative” Improved the Pollution Level?

Jun Zheng

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/202127502023

Abstract

Based on the panel data of 278 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2018, this paper adopts DID method to verify the impact of “the Belt and Road initiative” on pollution level of these cities, the results are still robust through the placebo test and PSM-DID, the mechanism is also analyzed. The study found that “the Belt and Road initiative” has a significant effect on the emission of wastewater, waste gas and dust of cities in China; the mechanism test shows that “the Belt and Road initiative” has significantly reduced urban environmental pollution by promoting foreign investment, upgrading industrial structure and technological innovation.

Highlights

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward "the Belt and Road Initiative ", which aims to make full use of the resources of the countries along the border to achieve the prosperity and development of China's economy, boost the economic growth of these countries. "the Belt and Road initiative" has greatly promoted the import and export trade of China.[1]
With the increase of China's export trade volume, the pollutants discharged from the production are increasing
The research on "the Belt and Road initiative" is mainly carried out from the perspective of economic development and political relationship, and there is little literature on environmental issues, this paper studies the environmental effects of "the Belt and Road initiative" by using the data of municipal pollution emission, which provides a solid theoretical and empirical support for promoting "the Belt and Road initiative"

Summary

Introduction

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward "the Belt and Road Initiative ", which aims to make full use of the resources of the countries along the border to achieve the prosperity and development of China's economy, boost the economic growth of these countries. "the Belt and Road initiative" has greatly promoted the import and export trade of China.[1]. There is a "double-edged sword" between economic development and environmental issues, there is little academic research on the impact of "the Belt and Road initiative" on the environment. This paper uses the difference in difference model (DID) to evaluate the environmental performance of "the Belt and Road initiative", according to the basic steps set up by the DID model, two dummy variables are constructed: (1) urban dummy variable C. This paper uses the propensity score matching method (PSM) to eliminate the sample selection bias, uses PSM-DID to assess the impact of "the Belt and Road initiative" on environmental pollution more accurately

Methods

Results

Conclusion