The Influence Of Pollution-intensive Industry Transfer On Economic Development And Residents’ Health In The Central And Western Regions Of China

Undertaking pollution industry transfer has not only brought opportunities for local economic development, but it also has produced a series of problems such as environmental pollution, ecological imbalance and put the health of local residents at risk in the process of economic development. With the improving of environmental regulation and rising of labor costs in the eastern and coastal developed regions such as Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, a large number of polluting industries are flowing into the Midwest. Because of the relatively fragile ecosystem in the central and western regions as well as their limited economic development level, the ecological environment, once damaged, is hard to be restored at a short-term. Meanwhile, health problems caused by environmental pollution may also directly affect the basic living conditions of the residents in these regions. In order to raise the reasonable cognition and value judgment on the pollution industries in the central and western regions, so as to make accurate identification their the economic effects and health risks, this thesis, based on the fully absorbing and referring to the relevant domestic and foreign research results, gives discussion mainly from the following aspects: 1) What is the current pattern and trend of pollution industry transfer in China? 2) How significantly has the pollution industry transfer played as a positive role in promoting economic progress in the Midwest? 3) What is the influence of pollution industrial undertaking to the residents’ health and health expenditure in the Midwest from macro-and micro-view.(1) Features and developing trends of regional pollution transfer in China. Based on industrial sulfur dioxide emissions data at the provincial level, as well as on the Theil index method, we measure the pollution emissions intensity in the eastern, central and western areas and analyze the regional differences of China’s environmental pollution. The results show that the primary difference on emissions in China is caused by the central and eastern regions, but the rapid widening differences in the western region and the pollution transfer trend to the Midwest should be paid more attention. And then, combining the theory of EKC, and using the PSTR model instead of regular panel threshold regression, which cannot accurately reflect the variable coefficients of the smooth transfer of trend, we find that the pollution intensity increases with income and spears a “trailing-inverted U” type development, and in low and high per capita GDP provinces, each has income threshold as per capita GDP of 12200 yuan and 42700 yuan respectively. Pattern analysis shows that most provinces with low per capita GDP in the Midwest are at their emission peak. Especially, in the northwest and southwest of China where the transfer trends is more obvious, the local governments should pay more attention to strengthening monitoring and management.(2) The impact of the pollution-intensive industries transfer on the economic progress of Midwest regions. As the influence of industry transfer on the economic and environmental is a dynamic process, this paper, different from other researches which only focus on the total transfer effect evaluation, employs TVP-VAR model to analyze the transfer impact from the perspective of dynamic impingement. The results indicate that, at the beginning of the pollution-intensive industries transfer, it helps to promote the local economic and residents’ income growth, and then gradually becomes stable after short-term fluctuations in reverse process. So the economy, as we can see, is driven by this transfer only for a short term. Further analysis on structural impact differences shows that, if the economy is at the early stage of recession, pollution-intensive industries transfer has less pulling power on the employment in the short term, but it can promote local economic development and income growth of the residents. It also indicates that the short-term transfer economic effect is relatively moderate in the “new normal” phase of the economic transition period.(3) The effect of pollution-intensive industries transfer on the health of individuals in the Midwest. Based on the CHARLS microcosmic research data and using the Order Probit model, the paper investigates the Static and dynamic health of individuals in the Midwest from the perspective of participant’s current self-reported and secondary access period survey. The results indicate that,on the whole, most residents’ self-reported health is at below average level and the Midwest is deteriorating, faster than national average level. From the dynamic perspective, though the pollution transfer increases the risk of the disease by residents in the Midwest, it has not reached the significant increase in the critical level of the disease. Further grouping antitheses research shows that, compared with the ordinary residents in the Midwest, the impacts of pollution transfer are more easily to happen on the non-agricultural residence community, old people in the age of 55-74 and the relatively low income group. Therefore, the government should focus on those groups in the process of industrial pollution undertaking.(4) Pollution-intensive industries transfer on the influence of the health expenditure of residents in the Midwest. Using PDI index, we study the changing trend of pollution-intensive industries in the Midwest, and combined with the geographical location weighting spatial econometric model, we analyze the influence of pollution industries transfer on residents’ health expenditure. The results indicate that pollution intensive industries are mostly centered in the eastern region at present stage, but the undertaking growth in the central region is significantly faster than the western, as we look from the trend of the transfer. And structure analysis showed that undertaking pollution-intensive industries has a significant influence on the residents’ health expenditure in the Midwest, and income growth effect by the undertaking is greater than the effect of health expenditure caused by pollution. Overall, undertaking pollution-intensive industries still enhance the total income level of residents in the Midwest. After further comparison, it shows that income growth effect by the undertaking is greater than the effect of health expenditure caused by pollution in the central provinces, but not significant in the west regions. It is, we find, related to the weak economic foundation and geopolitical disadvantage of the western regions, which led to the significant lagging of the western both in quantity and quality behind the central regions.Evaluating the influence of industrial pollution transfer to the economic and health of residents objectively is an important guaranty for scientifically developing industry undertaking policy, maintaining regional ecological balance and ensuring residents health. From the perspective of static and dynamic analysis, the study shows that pollution-intensive industries have trends of moving to the Midwest at the current, and the transfer is not only reflected in the pollution transfer amount rising, but it also shows the transfer differential diffusion trend is more obvious. Although understanding pollution-intensive industries has presented economic development opportunities for the Midwest, but the promoting role is relatively short. In the meantime, considering the graduality of the health effects from the ecological environment pollution, that is to say, at this stage the prevalence of Midwest residents have not significantly increased along with the transfer of pollution, but research demonstrates the probability of residents’ health is now in a significant upward trend. Therefore, although income growth effect by the undertaking is greater than the effect of health expenditure caused by pollution in central provinces at the present stage, potential health deteriorating risks must be given more attention in a timely manner. Not only are the source control and end-treatment needed in the Midwest regions, but some measures just as environmental hazard assessment and ecological compensation and repair also should be used to take the inhabitants health risk of undertaking polluted industries to a minimum.