Research On The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On The Quality Of China's Urbanization

In the past,traditional urbanization faces an imbalance between quantity and quality and disparate development of regional economies.Due to the emphasis on cities over the countryside,there occurs a severe urban-rural divide.Meanwhile,cities are plagued by problems in employment,housing,transportation,and ecological environment that jointly hinder the highquality development of urbanization.Specifically,traditional urbanization is mostly inclined to the rural population's concentration in the urban space,the increase in the urban population,and the expansion of the urbanization scale,with a priority in material urbanization.With the slowdown of economic growth,deceleration in industrialization,and shrinking of the resource environment,the traditional urbanization centered on land development and large-scale real estate development becomes unsustainable.Thus,it is imperative to change the development model of urbanization and transition into human-oriented quality development.China has focused on improving the coordination mechanism of ecological civilization,facilitating comprehensive green transitions in socio-economic development.Besides,equal importance should be attached to "optimizing the spatial layout of land resources and facilitating regional development and new-style urbanization." As China transitions to high-quality development,ecological civilization construction and newstyle urbanization construction become two priorities.Meanwhile,achieving high-quality urbanization based on environmental governance becomes an inevitable problem faced by China's economic development.The paper aims to solve three problems: First,how to measure the quality of China's urbanization development;secondly,whether environmental regulation affects the quality of China's urbanization development;thirdly,how does environmental regulation affect the quality of China's urbanization through the transmission mechanism.Based on existing studies,the paper first establishes a comprehensive evaluation index system that compromises the demographic,economic,spatial,social,and ecological dimensions and 21 basic indexes.Next,this system is employed to measure the composite index and dimensional indexes of urbanization development.After that,the paper summarizes the status quo and characteristics of China's urbanization development quality on the national and regional levels based on measurement data.Lastly,the paper places research priorities on the impact of environmental regulation on urbanization quality and its internal transmission mechanism to provide useful references for facilitating high-quality construction and green development of China's urbanization.This paper consists of eight research sections listed as follows:The first part is the introduction.It describes the research background of the study and proposes key problems to be solved.Next,it expounds on the study's theoretical and practical significances.Lastly,it introduces the study's research ideas,content,methodology,innovations,and possible limitations.The second part is the review of domestic and overseas literature.It focuses on reviewing domestic and overseas literature related to the study and summarizes existing literature.(1)Studies concerning environmental regulation: the concepts and definitions of environmental regulation,as well as the economic and ecological effect of environmental regulation;(2)Studies related to the urbanization quality: the differences between high-quality urbanization and traditional urbanization,definitions of high-quality urbanization,and relevant measurement;(3)Studies on the impact of environmental regulation and urbanization: Existing literature is reviewed to explore previous achievements in relations between environmental regulation and the urbanization quality and lay a foundation for the paper's study.The third part focuses on measuring and analyzing the indexes of China's urbanization quality.First,it establishes a comprehensive evaluation index system consisted of the demographic,economic,spatial,social,and ecological dimensions and 21 basic indexes.Next,it measures the composite index and dimensional indexes of China's urbanization development with the Entropy Weight Method and the Principal Component Analysis.Finally,it summarizes the status quo and characteristics of China's urbanization development quality on the national and regional levels based on measurement results.The fourth part focuses on environmental regulation's impact on urbanization quality based on empirical analysis.Firstly,an econometric model is constructed to find the impact of environmental regulation on urbanization quality based on relevant studies.Next,environmental regulation is classified into effect-oriented and process-oriented environmental regulation by indexes of China's urbanization development quality measured in the fourth section.Based on that,spatial spillover effect can be divided into the direct effect and the indirect effect.Then a Robustness test is carried out by changing the spatial weighted matrix and the measurement indexes of core explanatory variables.Lastly,the non-linear relationship between environmental regulation and the urbanization development quality is tested based on the above-mentioned empirical studies.The fifth,sixth,and seventh parts study the transmission mechanism of environmental regulation's impact on urbanization development quality from three perspectives,including technical innovation,adjustment of industrial structures,and correct the resource mismatch.The fifth part is centered on the transmission mechanism of technical innovations.Firstly,the panel data of 31 Chinese provinces between 2001 and 2018 are abstracted and analyzed based on relevant theories.Next,an empirical test is carried out through the Panel Regression Model and the Dynamic Threshold Regression to study how environmental regulation affects the urbanization development quality through technical innovations.The sixth part focuses on studying the transmission mechanism of optimizing industrial structures.Firstly,a theoretical model is constructed to explain how environmental regulation forces the adjustment of industrial structures.Next,the panel data of 285 Chinese cities at municipal levels and above between 2003 and 2016 are abstracted.Then the mediating effect model and spatial measurement model are employed to carry out empirical tests on whether environmental regulation facilitates high-quality urbanization development by forcing the adjustment of industrial structures.The seventh part starts by correcting the transmission mechanism of the resource mismatch.Next,the panel data of 285 Chinese cities at municipal levels and above between 2003 and 2016 are abstracted.Then the 2SLS model is employed for the empirical analysis of whether environmental regulation affects the transmission mechanism of urbanization quality by correcting the resource mismatch.The eighth part lists research conclusions and proposes relevant policy suggestions.By summarizing the entire study,this part draws primary research conclusions.Then it provides experience and references for China to make feasible environmental regulation policies and coordinate environmental protection and high-quality urbanization development.Based on the above studies,the study draws the following conclusions:Firstly,the measurement outcomes of China's urbanization development quality show the following facts:(1)Between 2003 and 2016,the composite indexes of most cities' urbanization quality increased year by year,and the highest urbanization quality mainly occurred in directlycontrolled municipalities,provincial capitals,and coastal cities in eastern regions.(2)Between2003 and 2016,the weights of economic development,urban spatial construction,social services,demographic urbanization,and ecological environment in the composite index of urbanization development quality follow a descending order.(3)The dimensional indexes and composite index of the urbanization development quality vary widely from city to city,indicating an imbalance in the urbanization development quality.Although the composite index of the urbanization development quality in each region steadily rose between 2003 and 2016,an imbalance existed between regions.Specifically,the urbanization development quality in eastern regions,central regions,and western regions followed a descending order.Secondly,tightening environmental regulation is conducive to raise urbanization development quality.As spatial matrix conditions vary,the higher the pollutant removal rate and the fewer pollutants generated per 10,000 yuan of GDP,the more favorable for raising the urbanization development quality.Meanwhile,the tighter the environmental regulation,the higher the urbanization development quality in the region.Besides,a positive spatial spillover effect also benefits the urbanization development quality of surrounding regions.Overall,the spillover effect of environmental regulation on the urbanization development quality reflects spatial heterogeneity.Specifically,the regression cofficient of effect-oriented environmental regulation is most significant in western regions,while the regression coefficient of process-oriented environmental regulation is significant in central regions and insignificant in eastern and western regions.Thirdly,an empirical analysis is carried out to study how environmental regulation affects urbanization quality through the transmission mechanism of technical innovations.According to study findings,(1)environmental regulation not only stimulates technical innovations through pollutant treatment's progress effect and production technology's innovation effect,but also enhances the role played by technical innovations(including innovations in pollutant-treatment technology and production technology)in raising the urbanization quality.That said,environmental regulation can be blent with technological innovations to create synergy to facilitate high-quality urbanization development.(2)Based on innovations in pollutant treatment technology,environmental regulation's impact on the urbanization development quality had a U-shaped turn from negative to positive.Conversely,the impact of innovations in production technology does not reflect such a trait but remains positive.(3)Environmental regulation has a single-threshold effect on raising the urbanization quality,and technical innovations' impact on raising the urbanization quality varies with the environmental regulation level.When environmental regulation is on a low level,innovations in pollutant-treatment technology plays a limited role in raising the urbanization quality.As environmental regulation tightens,the promotional effect becomes more pronounced.Conversely,the innovations in production technology facilitate the high-quality urbanization development stably,and such effect is independent of the environmental regulation level.Fourthly,an empirical test is carried out to find how environmental regulation affects urbanization quality through the transmission mechanism of upgrading industrial structures.According to study findings,(1)environmental regulation forces the rationalization of industrial structures and is thus conducive for high-quality urbanization development.Conversely,environmental regulation fails to force the upgrading of industrial structures,so the latter fails to play a mediating role in facilitating high-quality urbanization development.(2)From a national perspective,the coefficients of environmental regulation and its lagged terms are positive,meaning local environmental regulation raises the urbanization quality in local and surrounding regions.Hence making industrial structures more reasonable raises the urbanization quality not only in local regions but also in surrounding regions.Conversely,upgrading industrial structures has no similar spatial spillover effect.(3)From a regional perspective,the impact of environmental regulation and adjustment of industrial structures on urbanization development reflects spatial heterogeneity.Firstly,environmental regulation's promotion in high-quality urbanization development is most significant in western regions,mildly significant in eastern regions,and insignificant in central regions.Secondly,rationalizing industrial structures significantly promotes high-quality urbanization development in eastern,central,and western regions.Besides,such promotion has a diminishing effect and reflects spatial heterogeneity.Conversely,upgrading industrial structures restricts high-quality urbanization development in western regions yet has an insignificant promotion in eastern and central regions.Fifthly,an empirical study is carried out to find how environmental regulation affects urbanization quality through the transmission mechanism of correcting resource mismatch.The following conclusions have been reached:(1)The transmission mechanisms of the labor mismatch and the capital mismatch have been verified.Specifically,environmental regulation raises the urbanization development quality by correcting the labor mismatch and the capital mismatch;(2)Capital mismatch restricts the urbanization development quality more severely in western and central regions than in eastern regions.Therefore,correcting the capital mismatch raises the urbanization development quality in small and medium-sized cities more effectively,while correcting the labor mismatch raises the urbanization development quality in large cities more effectively.(3)Although capital approaches are useful in the current stage,their effect is unsustainable and restricted by the population size.By comparison,labor approaches play a significant role in raising the urbanization development quality.Therefore,we should further crush the administrative barriers and set up ecological compensation mechanism for inter-regional pollution prevention and control with the least delay possible.While working on the joint regional enforcement and supervision of environmental law,we should also build a unified monitoring platform for environmental pollution,and carry out regional environmental information sharing and joint early warning,so as to resolutely avert the "beggar-thy-neighbor" segmentation for pollution control.On the other hand,with extensive urbanization development path being a major cause of intensified pollution,China's urbanization transformation should go rationally toward highlighting the development of compact cities and rigorous control of inefficient expansion of urban scale.On the road of high-quality development of urbanization ahead,it is necessary to quicken the adjustment of urban industrial structure,urge the research and development of clean technology,boost the advancement of clean energy and the improvement of energy efficiency,and properly plan the urban transportation system,so as to promote the intensive development of cities as a whole.Meanwhile,apart from increasing the urban scale and urbanization rate,we should also make more efficient use and planning of land resources,enhance the actual efficiency of urban space construction,effectively prevent and undermine the inefficient "urban sprawl",and uplift the quality of urbanization development.