Environmental Regulation Intensity Research Articles

Impact of environmental regulation intensity on green innovation efficiency in the Yellow River Basin, China

In this paper, a model for the slacks-based measure of super-efficiency in data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) was used to measure the green innovation efficiency (GIE) of 79 cities in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) from 2003 to 2018. In addition, the panel threshold model was employed to test the nonlinear relationship between environmental regulation intensity (ERI) and GIE. According to the results, the average GIE in the YRB was 0.68. However, the GIE exhibited a rising and fluctuating temporal trend and the following spatial trend: “lower reaches > upper reaches > middle reaches.” Moreover, ERI had a double threshold effect on GIE in the YRB. That is, ERI had a significant positive impact on GIE only when ERI ranged between 0.595 and 0.899. Furthermore, the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the YRB exhibited different nonlinear correlations between ERI and GIE. Therefore, it is essential to implement environmental regulations that are appropriate for the actual conditions of each region. In addition, the per capita income, teacher resources, industrial structure, and actual utilization of foreign capital are significant factors affecting GIE in the YRB. These findings can help governments formulate suitable environmental policies and promote green innovation in the YRB, thereby contributing toward the goal of global sustainable development.

The unintended effects of inter-basin water transfer policies on corporate research and development activities

Abstract Inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) policies alter the spatial distribution of water endowments and trigger changes in environmental regulation policies, which may unintentionally impact the research and development (R&D) activities in IBWT water-receiving areas. However, the existing studies failed to examine the relationship between IBWT policies and corporate R&D activities, and lacked the exploration of the micro-mechanism of IBWT's unintended impact on corporate R&D activities. Through the water delivery of China's South-North Water Transfer Project as a quasi-natural experiment, this study adopts a difference-in-differences approach to scrutinise the unintended impact of IBWT policies on corporate R&D activities. The findings show that IBWT policies can make the water a ‘resource blessing’ by directly improving the water endowment in water-receiving areas, thereby promoting corporate R&D activities. In addition, IBWT policies can also indirectly encourage local governments in water-receiving areas to strengthen the intensity of environmental regulations, ultimately promoting companies to improve R&D activities. Finally, the impacts of IBWT policies on corporate R&D activities in water-receiving areas are heterogeneous. Overall, this study contributes to understanding the complicated relationship between IBWT policies and corporate R&D activities, and provides insights into how IBWT policies affect corporate R&D activities.

Regional Differences in the Emission-Reduction Effect of Environmental Regulation Based on the Perspective of Embodied Carbon Spatial Transfer Formed by Inter-Regional Trade

On the basis of the latest input–output data, this paper estimates the amount of embodied carbon emissions in inter-regional trade by constructing a multiregional input–output model to evaluate how environmental regulation stringency influences its spatial transfer. We found that environmental regulation stringency had significant positive correlation with transferring out embodied carbon emissions in trade at the national level, and a significant negative correlation with transferring in embodied carbon emissions in trade. In East and Central China, effective environmental regulation observably improves the issue of carbon emissions caused by trade, while in the western region, environmental regulation stringency had significant positive correlation with transferring in and out embodied carbon emissions in inter-regional trade. For that reason, we further use the geographically weighted regression model (GWR) to assess the spatial evolution characteristics of the intensity of environmental regulation on the transfer of embodied carbon emissions in trade; thereby, the above results are verified and show that environmental regulation has failed to play its due role.

How does public environmental supervision affect the industrial structure optimization?

Based on the panel data of 278 prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2017, this study takes the environmental information disclosure policy implemented in 2008 as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the difference-in-difference method to examine the impact of public environmental supervision on industrial structure upgrading. This study found thatpublic environmental supervision has indeed significantly promoted the industrial structure optimization. It is noteworthy that, the impact of public environmental supervision on industrial structure optimization is heterogeneous across regions and corresponding to the intensity of environmental regulations. Public environmental supervision in the eastern region has significantly promoted the optimization of the industrial structure, while the promotion effect in the central and western regions is not obvious. Besides, the effect of public environmental supervision is more significant in the cities with relatively tight traditional environmental regulations. The mechanism analysis shows that public environmental supervision promotes industrial structure upgrading mainly by influencing the level of urban technological innovation, and the level of technological innovation plays an intermediary role between public environmental supervision and industrial structureoptimization. This study has important reference significance for further improving the environmental information disclosure system and constructing an environmental governance system with the government as the leading body, enterprises as the main body, and the public as the common participation.

Analysis of Green Financial Policy Utility: A Policy Incentive Financial Mechanism Based on State Space Model Theory Algorithm

In recent years, in the context of “double carbon” and innovation-driven synthesis, the volume of green finance has been growing year by year, and the intensity of environmental regulation has been stabilizing. As green financial technology innovation cannot be separated from the support of financial market and government policies, how to promote green financial technology innovation with green finance and environmental regulation has become a hot issue. How to control the appropriate strength of environmental regulations to promote green financial technology innovation is a matter of continuous exploration by local governments. The research of this paper is about the utility analysis of green finance policy: a policy incentive financial mechanism based on the state space model theory algorithm. Therefore, this paper introduces the theory of green finance based on the state space model algorithm and neural network model algorithm to study China’s green finance policy incentive mechanism, profoundly study the current situation of domestic green finance development, and put forward further strengthen the leading role of the government in green financial innovation. At the same time, suggestions for achieving coordinated regional development were made in terms of giving full play to the role of financial markets in promoting green technology innovation.

Can local environmental constraints improve enterprise's green innovation quality? Evidence from Chinese-listed firms.

The target responsibility system of environmental protection is one of the vital channels to achieve a win-win situation for both economic development and environmental protection. Comprehensively investigating how local environmental target constraints drive enterprises to improve their green innovation quality is of enormous theoretical and practical significance for optimizing the implementation effect of environmental target constraints policies and boosting enterprises' green and high-quality development. We empirically examine the mechanism of the impact of the intensity of different types of local environmental target constraints on the quality of corporate green innovation and the nonlinear relationship between them through innovatively constructing indicators of local environmental target constraint intensity and utilizing the knowledge width of green patents of listed companies as a proxy variable for enterprise green innovation quality. First, the strength of indirect environmental target constraints has a significant positive effect on the quality of green innovation, but further nonlinear characteristics reveal a significant inverse U-shaped relationship between them. Second, indirect environmental target constraint intensity has an inverted U-shaped trend in increasing the intensity of environmental regulation and influencing the digitalization of enterprises, which in turn forms an inverted U-shaped relationship with the quality of green innovation. Third, indirect environmental target constraint intensity works better in areas with policies prioritizing city over province, with mayors less than 57years old, and for enterprises in technology-intensive industries.

Comparing potential cost savings of energy quota trading and carbon emissions trading for China's industrial sectors

In response to the severity of its environmental problems, China is fully promoting the construction of a national energy quota trading (EQT) market and a national carbon emission trading scheme (ETS). However, there is currently a lack of studies comparing the cost savings of EQT and ETS from the perspective of different industries in different provinces under the same environmental regulation. To fill this gap, this paper first estimates the shadow price of energy and CO2 in 30 Chinese provinces' 38 industrial sectors using provincial-industrial level data from 2005 to 2016 based on the duality theory of non-radial directional distance function. Thus, at the methodological level, this study also overcomes the shortcomings of the DEA method used in most previous studies, that is, it is not appropriate for the cross-industry and cross-province heterogeneity characteristics of the research target. It then evaluates the cost savings of EQT and ETS by simulating actual trade scenarios. We find that the single EQT market obtains greater cost-saving benefits than the mixed market and the single ETS market with the same environmental target. We suggest that the energy consumption units should choose the trading market based on their energy-saving and emissions reduction costs, which is more conducive to achieving the set environmental goals and obtaining cost savings, taking into account different regional industry structures, natural resources, and environmental regulation intensity.

Does Environmental Regulation Intensity Affect the Financial Risk of Manufacturing Enterprises? Evidence from China

Does Environmental Regulation Intensity Affect the Financial Risk of Manufacturing Enterprises? Evidence from China

Does the Environmental Regulation Intensity and ESG Performance Have a Substitution Effect on the Impact of Enterprise Green Innovation: Evidence from China.

Against the background of green and sustainable development strategy, it is an effective way to carry out green innovation to cope with the increasing intensity of government environmental regulation for enterprises. Nevertheless, the regulatory role of ESG performance has been ignored. Based on panel data from Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2019, this paper mainly studies whether the environmental regulation intensity and ESG performance have a substitution effect on the impact of green innovation by constructing a double fixed effect model. The empirical results showed that first, positive ESG performance is conducive to promoting green innovation. Second, there is a U-shaped relationship between the intensity of environmental regulation and high-quality green innovation, which reflects the effect of “offset before compensation”. With the increasing intensity of environmental regulation, high-quality green innovation tends to crowd out low-quality green innovation, which further improves the practical test of the “Porter Hypothesis”. Third, the positive ESG performance showed a negative regulatory effect between environmental regulation intensity and enterprise green innovation, which means that environmental regulation intensity and ESG performance have a substitution effect, and the effect is heterogeneous in different enterprises. This paper makes a beneficial exploration on how environmental regulation intensity and ESG performance affect enterprise green innovation, and demonstrates the regulatory role of ESG performance between environmental regulation intensity and green innovation, which reveals the impact of macro environmental policies on the green innovation behavior of micro subjects, and contributes to the further improvement of ESG concept and green innovation theory.

Regional differences, dynamic evolution, and driving factors of tourism development in Chinese coastal cities

Tourism plays a significant role in the economic development of coastal cities. This study constructed an evaluation index system to evaluate the development of the tourism industry in Chinese coastal cities. Based on data from 39 coastal cities in China from 2010 to 2019, the regional differences, dynamic evolution, and drivers of tourism development in coastal cities in China were studied using the entropy method, Dagum Gini coefficient, Kernel density estimation, and spatial Durbin model (SDM). The following results were obtained. (1) The level of tourism development in China's coastal cities showed a pattern of decline, followed by an increase. (2) Regional differences in the development of tourism in coastal areas were significant, and mainly derived from intra- and inter-group differences. (3) The evolution of tourism development in coastal cities showed a clear gradient effect and divergence. (4) The direct effect of economic development, transport construction, technological innovation, and high-end special tourism services on coastal tourism development was positive; the indirect effect of transport construction and economic development was positive; and both the direct and indirect effects of environmental regulation intensity showed a U-shaped curve. The findings of this study have practical implications for promoting the development of the tourism industry in coastal areas and for enhancing regional economies.

Relationship between Environmental Pollution, Environmental Regulation and Resident Health in the Urban Agglomeration in the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River, China: Spatial Effect and Regulating Effect

The Healthy China 2030 Initiative is closely related to the coordinated development between national health, economy, and society. This major move demonstrates China’s active engagement in global health governance and in the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs). Based on Grossman’s health production function, this paper introduces key factors such as environmental pollution and environmental regulation to empirically investigate the regulating effect of environmental regulation, as well as the spatial spillover of environmental pollution and environmental regulation acting on resident health. We examine these effects by using the panel data of 28 cities of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (UAMYRY) between 2009 and 2019. The results show that: (1) Environmental pollution brings a loss to resident health. Among the urban agglomerations, the circum-Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan urban agglomeration (CCZXUA) and the Poyang Lake urban agglomeration (PLUA) have a much lower health effect of environmental pollution than the Wuhan urban agglomeration (WUA). (2) With the growing intensity of environmental regulation, the negative effect of environmental pollution on resident health will gradually decrease. Regionally, the environmental regulation in the CCZXUA has the best effect on residents’ health, followed by the WUA and the PLUA, which have the worst. (3) As a whole, the spatial spillover of environmental regulation and pollution has a significant impact on residents’ health, and the spatial spillover effect between urban agglomerations is stronger than that between cities in each urban agglomeration. The conclusions remain robust with various tests such as replacing control variables, introducing lagged explanatory variables, and considering endogeneity. Based on robust empirical evidence, several specific region policy suggestions, including rolling out proper environmental regulation policies, and establishing a linking mechanism of environmental management, were put forward to improve the environmental pollution state and resident health level of the UAMYRY.

Environmental regulation and global value chain division position：Analysis based on global transnational data

Based on the CEPII BACI six-digit import and export product data from 2009 to 2019 and the WDI database of the World Bank, this paper uses the bilateral stochastic frontier analysis model to calculate the global value chain (GVC) bargaining power index of 131 countries or regions in the world, and measure their GVC division position. This paper also uses an environmental performance index to represent the intensity of environmental regulation. A panel data model is then established to test the impact of environmental regulations on GVC division position. The results show that: (1) Environmental regulation has an inverted U-shaped nonlinear effect on GVC division position, which initially increases and then decreases; (2) The mechanism is that appropriate environmental regulation can promote scientific and technological progress, but that strict environmental regulation can inhibit scientific and technological progress; (3) The effect of environmental regulation on GVC division position only occurs in regions of poorly developed countries, during the period of global economic change after 2012, and in polluting industries.

The green paradox puzzle: fiscal decentralisation, environmental regulation, and agricultural carbon intensity in China.

China has the highest carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. Exploring the mechanism of fiscal decentralisation on agricultural carbon intensity can help China reach its carbon peak and become carbon neutral. This study used panel data for 30 provinces in Mainland China from 2000 to 2019 and constructed a spatial Durbin model to investigate the spatial-temporal patterns and internal relationships among fiscal decentralisation, environmental regulation, and agricultural carbon intensity. The results indicated that (1) from 2000 to 2019, the agricultural carbon intensity showed a downward trend and showed a spatial pattern of 'high in the north and low in the south'. The degree of fiscal decentralisation has gradually increased, and the spatial pattern of 'high in the north and low in the south' has also emerged. The intensity of environmental regulation continues to increase, and the intensity of environmental regulation in inland areas is higher than that in coastal areas. (2) From 2000 to 2019, the global Moran index of agricultural carbon intensity showed a development trend of first rising and then falling, and the spatial correlation changed from strong to weak. Agricultural carbon intensity tends to develop from polarisation to balanced development. (3) Both fiscal decentralisation and environmental regulation can reduce agricultural carbon intensity, and environmental regulation has a negative spatial spillover effect. (4) Under the influence of fiscal decentralisation, environmental regulation is not conducive to reducing agricultural carbon intensity due to the characteristics of 'race to the bottom', causing the 'green paradox' effect. (5) Environmental regulation and fiscal decentralisation in main grain producing areas have less impact on agricultural carbon intensity than in non-main grain producing areas. Therefore, the central government should focus on optimising the fiscal decentralisation system, formulating a differentiated agricultural carbon emission control system, regulating competition among local governments, and optimising a political performance evaluation system.

Has environmental regulation improved the international competitiveness of Chinese cities?

ABSTRACT Based on the instrumental variable method and a fixed-effects model, this paper uses panel data from 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2016 to analyse the impact of environmental regulation on the international competitiveness of China. The results suggest that (1) the strengthening of environmental regulation hinders the international competitiveness of Chinese cities; (2) technological innovation, resource allocation and government intervention all have partial mediating effects between the intensity of environmental regulation and the international competitiveness of Chinese cities. Nevertheless, if reasonable environmental policies can be formulated to enable the organic coordination of technological innovation, resource allocation and government intervention, it is possible to achieve a win-win situation between environmental regulation and the international competitiveness of Chinese cities.

Environmental Regulations, Green Technology Innovation, and High-Quality Economic Development in China: Application of Mediation and Threshold Effects

In this article, we consider sample data from 30 regions in China from 2004 to 2020. We use the entropy method to measure the high-quality development level, then examine the intermediary and threshold effects to verify the main paths by which green technology innovation mediates the relationship between environmental regulation intensity and the quality of economic development. Our conclusions are as follows: (1) There is a “U”-shaped relationship between environmental regulation intensity and high-quality economic development. When the environmental regulation intensity is low, there is a negative (inhibitory) relationship between the two, while there is a positive (promoting) relationship when the intensity is high. Furthermore, a high proportion of secondary industries inhibit high-quality development, perfect infrastructure and information access can promote high-quality development, and excessive population density hinders high-quality development. (2) There also exists a “U”-shaped relationship between environmental regulation intensity and green technology innovation, which forms a co-directional change relationship. Green technology innovation has a significant mediating effect on the impact of environmental regulation intensity on high-quality economic development. (3) The threshold effect test confirms the existence of double thresholds. When the green technology innovation level is not high, environmental regulations inhibit high-quality economic development. However, when green technology innovation reaches a certain level, environmental regulations will promote high-quality economic development. This paper has certain theoretical reference for achieving high-quality development goals; thus, our results are expected to provide theoretical support for China’s high-quality development.

Environmental Regulation, Digital Financial Inclusion, and Environmental Pollution: An Empirical Study Based on the Spatial Spillover Effect and Panel Threshold Effect

Environmental regulation is a crucial tool for controlling environmental pollution. Digital finance is essential for the development of green finance. The relationship between environmental regulation and digital finance concerning environmental pollution is an issue worth exploring. This paper uses the spatial econometric model and the panel threshold model to empirically analyze the impact of environmental regulation and digital financial inclusion on environmental pollution using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces between 2011 and 2019. It mainly discusses the independent impact and synergy of environmental regulation and digital inclusive finance on environmental pollution. The research results show that the improvement of the intensity of environmental regulation and the development level of digital-inclusive finance can effectively alleviate the problem of environmental pollution. Moreover, environmental regulation and digital inclusive finance can coordinately control environmental pollution. A panel threshold analysis shows that as the intensity of environmental regulation increases, digital financial inclusion will reflect the function of environmental governance. Similarly, with the development of digital financial inclusion, environmental regulation has shown a significant inhibitory effect on environmental pollution. The results of a heterogeneity analysis show that the intensity of environmental regulation in the eastern region has a significant inhibitory effect on environmental pollution. Digital financial inclusion in the central region shows a strong environmental governance function. The intersection of environmental regulation and digital financial inclusion has shown a significant synergistic governance effect in the eastern region. Therefore, the government gives full play to the functions of environmental regulation and digital inclusive finance environmental governance to achieve coordinated governance of environmental pollution.

Study on the Impact of Environmental Regulation, Green Technological Progress and Consumption Upgrading: An Empirical Study Based on Provincial Panel Data

This paper sorts out the relationship between environmental regulation, green technological progress and consumption upgrading at the theoretical level, and conducts an empirical analysis using a sample of 30 Chinese provinces from 2005 to 2019 to investigate the mechanism of the impact of environmental regulation on consumption upgrading, and further tests the mediating effect of green technological progress. The findings show that environmental regulation has a facilitating effect on residents' consumption upgrading, and there is a mediating effect of green technological progress in the mechanism of environmental regulation on consumption upgrading, i.e. environmental regulation acts on consumption upgrading by influencing green technological progress. Therefore, the government should improve the environmental regulation system, appropriately increase the intensity of environmental regulation, and encourage green technological progress to achieve consumption upgrading in the context of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.

Green finance and corporate environmental responsibility: evidence from heavily polluting listed enterprises in China.

Green finance is not just a global trend, but it has become an important channel for industrialized countries to achieve sustainable growth. However, few studies have discussed the environmental governance effects of green finance from the micro-firm level. Based on the data of Chinese A-share listed firms in heavily polluting industries, we, combining with property rights and environmental regulation, empirically research the influence of green finance on corporate environmental responsibility (CER) performance. Results indicate that green finance has a significant negative effect on the environmental responsibility of heavily polluting firms. The result remains after a series of robustness tests. In addition, property rights and environmental regulation play a moderating role in the above relationship. The negative impact of green finance on CER is stronger in private firms and firms in areas with low environmental regulation intensity. Moreover, we observe that green finance decreases the CER performance of heavily polluting firms by increasing financing constraints, reducing environmental investment, and diminishing technological innovation. This study identifies the external factors that influence CER and also provides implications and theoretical support for the government to improve the setting and the implementation of green finance policy in the future.

Spatial Correlation and Influencing Factors of Environmental Regulation Intensity in China

In this study, we examined the spatial difference of environmental regulation intensity in 30 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) of China. It was found that there were significant differences in environmental regulation intensity in the four regions, with a decreasing trend of “west–central–northeast–east” on the whole. Applying the Theil index showed that intra-regional differences accounted for more than 85% of the overall differences in environmental regulation intensity. Goble Moran’s I index was used to verify the spatial correlation of China’s environmental regulation. It was found that the p-value of Goble Moran’s I index was less than 10% in 7 years from 2010 to 2019. It was verified that the environmental regulation intensity in China has had a spatial correlation. In addition, a positive spatial correlation between the environmental regulation intensity in each province was found, indicating that an increase in the environmental regulation intensity of one province will lead to an increase in the intensity of environmental regulation in neighboring provinces. Finally, through the construction of a spatial Markov model to test the spillover effect of environmental regulation intensity in China, it was found that the local environmental regulation intensity will change to different degrees when there are spatial differences in the intensity of environmental regulation in neighboring provinces. This research will be helpful for provincial governments to formulate appropriate environmental regulation targets based on regional characteristics, which is of great significance for China’s and other countries’ green economic development and other countries to solve the contradiction between environmental pollution and economic development.

The Effects of Environmental Regulation on Investment Efficiency—An Empirical Analysis of Manufacturing Firms in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region, China

The Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region is China’s most important urban economic group. The specific structure of the region’s manufacturing industry causes enterprises to face the problem of low investment efficiency. How to balance high efficiency investment with the development of the ecological environment, achieving a win–win situation, is an urgent problem. In order to explore the impact of environmental regulation on the investment efficiency of listed manufacturing enterprises in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, this study utilized environmental regulation and enterprise-level data from 2011 to 2017, established a panel regression model, and then tested the impact mechanism of environmental regulation on corporate investment efficiency. On this basis, the panel threshold model was established to test the existence of the threshold effect of environmental regulation. The empirical results show that environmental regulation will have a negative impact on the investment efficiency of the listed manufacturing companies in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, causing the threshold of the impact of environmental regulation on investment efficiency to move from promotion to suppression. Finally, in accordance with the different scopes of the environmental regulation intensity of each manufacturing industry, the paper proposes reasonable suggestions for government departments in order to formulate environmental policies to improve the efficiency of enterprise investment.