Regional green development level and its spatial relationship under the constraints of haze in China

Abstract

This paper includes the new constraints of haze in the environmental efficiency research framework, and the SBM-Undesirable and Malmquist exponential models are used to measure and analyse the evolution characteristics and regional differences of regional green environmental efficiency of China. And applied China's regional panel data and a spatial Dubin model to deeply explore the impact of environmental regulation, openness, urbanisation, industrial structure, and technological innovation on regional green environmental efficiency. The result show that, under the constraints of smog, the regional green environment efficiency of China is different with each area and shows strong spatial dependence and spatial differentiation. The overall spatial distribution of the ‘east–middle–northeast–west’ gradient is decreasing. Environmental regulation had a major impact on the green environment efficiency of the region and demonstrated an ‘inverted N-type’ relationship. The degree of openness, urbanisation, industrial structure, and technological innovation play an active role in promoting regional green sustainable development. Economic growth, corporate ownership structure, fiscal policy, and foreign investment dependence have hindered the progress of regional green sustainable development to a certain extent.