| Since China’s reform and opening up,China’s regional industrial agglomeration level enhances gradually.Industrial agglomeration is an important engine of China’s rapid economic growth through the economies of scale effect,spillover effect and correlation effect.Industrial cluster strategy became one of the important strategies of regional economic development in China.However,along with the improvement of industrial concentration degree,high-speed economic growth,China now also faces severe environmental degradation.The relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution becomes a hot topic of academic circle.The impact of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution has two sides.On the one hand,with the increase of industrial agglomeration,the resource and energy consumption will increase,and the pollutant emissions will increase too.On the other hand,the positive environmental externalities such as the scale effect of environmental pollution control,the spillover of environmental governance technology and industrial symbiosis in the industrial agglomeration area reduce pollution emissions.Since industry is the mainstay of energy consumption and pollution emissions,what kind of environmental effects brought about by China’s industrial agglomeration is a research topic that needs to be verified.In the face of increasingly serious environmental problems and rising environmental requirements,various environmental regulation measures have emerged and are constantly evolving and upgrading.On the one hand,the implementation of the environmental regulation policy directly affects the company’s pollution discharge behavior.On the other hand,the environmental regulation policy affects the production and operation costs of the enterprise.The enterprise that aims to maximize profits will reconsider the location choice of its production and investment,which affecting the formation and development of regional industrial agglomeration and indirectly affecting environmental pollution emissions.Therefore,environmental regulation is an important constraint variable that affects the relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution.Based on this background,this paper attempts to incorporate industrial agglomeration,environmental regulation and environmental pollution into a unified research framework,theoretically analyze the impact of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on environmental pollution,and use the data of China to conduct empirical tests.On this basis,it puts forward policy recommendations to promote the win-win development of industrial agglomeration and ecological civilization in China,and provide decision-making reference for government and the relevant decision-making departments.In terms of theoretical analysis,based on the “free capital” model of new economic geography,by referring to the research design of Zeng and Zhao(2009),this paper constructs a theoretical model that encompasses industrial agglomeration,environmental regulation,pollution discharge,cross-border pollution,and negative externalities between industries.The numerical simulation method is used to deeply analyze the impact of industrial agglomeration on pollution emissions under the constraint of environmental regulations.Based on theoretical analysis and numerical simulation results,five research assumptions of this paper are proposed.In reality,the impact of environmental regulation policies on environmental pollution depends on the game strategies of government,non-governmental environmental organizations and enterprises.Therefore,the three-player game analysis among government,environmental Non-government Organization and enterprise was built.By comparing and analyzing the income values of various parties under different strategic choice combinations,the factors affecting the effectiveness of government environmental regulation policies and the effective boundary conditions of environmental regulation are analyzed.And the research assumption 6 is proposed.In terms of empirical testing,this paper first examines the pollution mitigation effect of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution.In general,the impact coefficient of industrial agglomeration on pollution emissions in China is positive,that is,industrial agglomeration has aggravated pollution emissions in agglomeration areas.However,the impact of industrial agglomeration on pollution emissions presents nonlinear characteristics and has a double threshold effect.In the interval of different industrial agglomeration,the influence coefficient of industrial agglomeration on pollution emission is significantly different.And with the increase of industrial agglomeration,the influence coefficient of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution emission decreases step by step,that is,industrial agglomeration has obvious pollution emission reduction effect.From the results of sub-regional research,the industrial agglomeration in eastern China has a higher impact on environmental pollution than in the central region,and the central region is higher than the western region.The test results of the different development stage indicate that after the Chinese economy enters the new normal state,the influence coefficient of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution is significantly smaller than the impact of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution before the new normal.Secondly,from the perspective of moderating effect and the threshold effect of environmental regulation,by using multiple environmental regulation indicators,this paper examines the impact of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution under the constraints of environmental regulations.The test results show that environmental regulation is an important moderating variable affecting the relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution,and the coefficient of interaction term of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation is significantly negative,which means that the environmental regulation in China can reduce pollution emissions through industrial agglomeration.As to the different effects of the different policy means,market-based environmental regulation has the strongest moderating effect on the relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution,while command-controlled environmental regulation has the weakest moderating effect on the relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution.Environmental regulation is also an important threshold variable that affects the relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution.When the degree of environmental regulation is lower than the threshold value,the coefficient of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution is large;when the degree of environmental regulation is higher than the threshold,the coefficient of industrial agglomeration on environmental pollution is small.The above results indicate that the acceleration of environmental regulation will help to develop the environmentally friendly industrial cluster.However,the direct impact coefficient of environmental regulation on environmental pollution is positive,indicating that China’s current environmental regulation policy has no obvious effect on reducing pollution emissions,or even has the opposite result.Thirdly,in order to test the spatial spillover effects of industrial agglomeration,environmental regulation on environmental pollution,this paper uses spatial econometric models to further examine the relationship between industrial agglomeration,environmental regulation and environmental pollution.The test results show that there is a significant spatial autocorrelation relationship in China’s industrial agglomeration,environmental pollution and performance-based environmental regulation,and the degree of autocorrelation is gradually increasing.Industrial agglomeration is the main cause of environmental pollution.The industrial agglomeration in one region leads to an increase in the total amount of environmental pollution in the region,but the environmental pollution impact coefficient is negative for the adjacent region,and the total effect is negative too.It shows that although industrial agglomeration directly leads to an increase in environmental pollution emissions in the agglomeration areas,it has a greater reduction effect on environmental pollution in the adjacent areas,and the total effect is negative.That is to say,although industrial agglomeration will lead to an increase in pollution emissions in the region,industrial agglomeration can achieve a global emission reduction effect.The impact of input-type environmental regulation on environmental pollution hasn’t passed significant tests,while performance-based environmental regulation has negative effects on environmental pollution emissions in the region,but its spatial spillover effect is not significant.Finally,based on the research conclusions,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations: accelerating the industrial agglomeration level,optimizing the quality of industrial agglomeration,improving the green coordinated development mechanism of industrial agglomeration areas,building a more stringent and scientific environmental regulation system,strengthening the implementation of environmental regulations,and improving the public environmental awareness. |
