Abstract
Environmental pollution has aroused extensive concern worldwide in recent years. Existing studies on the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and environmental pollution have, however, paid little attention to spatial effects and regional corruption’s environmental performance from a spatial perspective. To address this gap, we investigate the spatial agglomeration effects of environmental pollution in China and the environmental effects of FDI and regional corruption using spatial econometric analysis method. The results indicate significant spatial agglomeration effects in environmental pollution. The results of spatial panel data models reveal that the estimation coefficient of FDI is significantly negative, and FDI inflows reduce China’s environmental pollution. Regional corruption is shown to increase environmental pollution, thereby contributing further to environmental degradation. The interaction coefficient of FDI and regional corruption is significantly positive, indicating that regional corruption reduces the environmental benefits derived from FDI. In addition, regional differences in spatial effects verify that regional corruption also reduces the environmental performance of FDI in the central region. Meanwhile, regional corruption increases the environmental aggravation effects of FDI in the eastern region but weakens it in the western region. Our findings lead to some policy recommendations with regard to environmental protection and pollution control.
Highlights
With the rapid development of economy in China, environmental pollution has become more and more fierce
In view of this, based on relevant statistical data from China’s provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, this paper investigates the spatial agglomeration effects of environmental pollution and the environmental effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) and regional corruption using spatial econometric analysis method. erefore, the innovation points of this paper mainly reflect in three aspects: first, we analyze and build a theoretical analysis model on the influence paths of FDI and regional corruption on environmental pollution, which further reveals the complex discipline of FDI and environmental pollution considering in the case of regional corruption; second, we analyze the spatial agglomeration effects of environmental pollution in China by using exploratory spatial data analysis technique
Except for 2012 and 2013, all global Moran’s I values are positive at the 20% significance level. ese results show that spatial factors cannot be ignored, and spatial effects should be introduced into econometric models
Summary
With the rapid development of economy in China, environmental pollution has become more and more fierce. The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) is an effective channel for domestic capital accumulation and an important way to obtain technology spillovers. China is a developing country that attracts the most foreign capital, and the inflow of foreign capital will inevitably affect the domestic environmental quality. E second perspective is the Pollution Halo Hypothesis, which states that FDI can be beneficial in improving environmental conditions [9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. FDI can improve regional environmental quality by raising income levels, limiting the evolution of pollution haven as being temporary phenomenon. FDI can improve regional environmental quality by raising income levels, limiting the evolution of pollution haven as being temporary phenomenon. e third view is the comprehensive environmental
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