Study On The Environmental Effects Of China's Foreign Direct Investment

The global economic crisis broke out in 2008,and the world economy has been slowing down since then.Although China has rapidly introduced huge investment plans after the financial crisis,it is undeniable that the extensive economic growth mode driven by resources and cheap labor has not been sustainable.Especially since China entered the new economic normal,the transformation of economic growth mode has become the focus of the central economic work.This also shows that the past “economic construction as the center” system has brought some drawbacks.For example,each region has actively developed its economy,adopted various means to attract investment,and even lowered the level of environmental regulation,resulting in serious environmental damage in China.Destruction,water pollution,smog and other issues pose a great threat to the lives and lives of residents.Since the “18th National Congress”,the central government has strengthened the construction of ecological civilization and implemented the most stringent ecological environmental protection system.These explanations,along with the changes in China's economic structure and the adjustment of environmental attitudes,may change the direction and path of the environment's influence on the environment by attracting foreign investment to develop the economy.At this stage,a lot of research has been done on the environmental effects of foreign direct investment.In China's experience,the conclusions of “pollution paradise”,“pollution aura” and nonlinear relationship exist.These studies laid the foundation for the paper and provided ideas for reference.However,before and after the “18th National Congress”,the level of foreign investment in the local government and the attitude of government officials to the ecological environment have changed.Therefore,in the past,scholars only discussed any stage or added the two stages into one sample.The conclusion is not accurate.This paper believes that the external factors that have affected the environmental effects of foreign direct investment since the “18th National Congress” have three aspects: First,the central government's monitoring of the environment has been strengthened in recent years,and it has also forced enterprises to reduce pollution emissions and even increase ecological innovation;Since 2012,the central government has adjusted the assessment indicators of local government officials,including resource conservation and environmental protection into the assessment system,which will also reduce the local government's investment impulses and increase environmental protection investment.Finally,residents' environmental awareness The increasing supervision of the media and the government has also changed the behavior of the government.However,due to the uneven development between regions in China,the different preferences of residents in terms of income growth and environmental demand will also make the social filter factor affect the relationship between foreign investment and environmental pollution.Based on this,this paper closely follows the perspective of the New era,along the New era,“Environmental regulation will strengthen whether foreign direct investment will generate ecological innovation spillovers”,“Whether the local government will reduce the competition for attracting investment,” Whether to continuously expand the relationship between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution,there are regional differences.These three paths systematically analyze the environmental effects of foreign direct investment in the New era.By selecting 256 prefecture-level city panel data and using the spatial panel data model,the analysis draws the following conclusions:(1)The overall scale of China's foreign direct investment has continued to rise.In terms of industries,the tertiary industry has the fastest growth rate and has become the main source of foreign direct investment.In terms of regions,the foreign direct investment in the eastern region is the largest and the foreign direct investment is the highest.The cities are mainly distributed in the eastern region,and the western region is the smallest.From the past two years,the eastern region has experienced a large decline,while the central region still rises,and the gap between regions has narrowed.China's industrial environmental pollution emissions have shown a trend of rising first and then falling,and environmental quality has improved in recent years.From the perspective of industry structure,the proportion of pollution emissions in high-energy and high-pollution industries has declined.From a regional perspective,urban industrial pollution emissions are highest in the eastern region and lowest in the central and western cities,but the proportions between regions are not obvious.The statistical description analysis initially shows that the correlation between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution is positive and negative.(2)Under the background of China's attitude towards the ecological environment and policy changes in the New era,the sample period is divided into two stages: the “old period”(2004-2011)and the “New era”(2012-2016).Based on the analysis of the continuous expansion of the scale of foreign direct investment,the environmental pollution first increases and then falls.The empirical study shows that in the old period,foreign direct investment will directly intensify environmental pollution through the spillover of production technology innovation.The environmental effect of foreign direct investment is in line with the “pollution paradise” hypothesis;in the New era,foreign direct investment will be directly and through.The spillover of ecological technology innovation indirectly reduces industrial environmental pollution,and the environmental effects of foreign direct investment are in line with the hypothesis of “polluting halo”.This indicates that the spillover of FDI ecological technology innovation under the transformation of central environmental policy in the New era is the main factor to promote the reduction of industrial pollution emissions.(3)Under the background of considering the change of the evaluation indicators of local government officials in China,it is necessary to explore whether the change of assessment methods of local government officials affects the relationship between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution.The empirical study shows that in the old period,the local government's economic competition promoted the local government to attract foreign investment,and foreign direct investment will promote environmental pollution,in line with the“pollution paradise” hypothesis;in the New era,under the diversified assessment system,Local governments will selectively introduce foreign capital and increase environmental governance.Foreign direct investment will reduce industrial environmental pollution and conform to the “pollution aura” hypothesis.This shows that the assessment mode of local government officials will change the direction of local government work and economic development,and significantly affect the environmental effects of foreign direct investment.(4)Under the background of the regional heterogeneity of the environmental effects of foreign direct investment,from the perspective of social filtering,the environmental effects of foreign direct investment between different regions in the“old period” and “New era” are analyzed.The empirical study shows that the social filtering effect of social pollution on foreign direct investment has a negative adjustment effect.In the old period,the degree of social filtration in the eastern,central and western regions was lower than the critical value of the negative environmental pollution effect.Therefore,foreign direct investment in three regions had a positive impact on environmental pollution;in the New era,social filtration in the eastern region The degree exceeds the critical value,and the social filtering degree in the central and western regions is still below the critical value,which makes the eastern region have the negative effect of environmental pollution of foreign direct investment,while the central and western regions still have the positive effect of environmental pollution of foreign direct investment.This indicates that social filtering will affect the absorption and digestibility of the region's ecological spillovers for foreign direct investment,and ultimately affect the level of environmental effects of foreign direct investment in the region.This paper is divided into seven chapters.Each chapter is arranged as follows:The first chapter The introduction mainly introduces the background and significance of the topic.On this basis,it puts forward the research ideas,research mechanism and logic,content framework and research methods,further puts forward the innovative points and shortcomings of this study,and defines some basic concepts to facilitate the later elaboration.The second chapter Theoretical Basis and Literature Review.After introducing the basic theory of environmental effects of FDI and China's empirical theory,the literature is basically combed along three parts: literature on foreign direct investment affecting the environment through innovation spillovers,foreign direct investment and environment on local government competition,and foreign direct investment and environment on social filtering mechanisms.After a basic review of the literature,the train of thought gradually became clear,which also led to three issues to be studied in this paper.The third chapter Evolution of FDI and environmental pollution in China.This chapter is mainly to sort out the historical evolution of foreign investment introduction policy and environmental protection policy and work in China.On this basis,it makes a comprehensive statistical description of the utilization of foreign direct investment and the level of environmental pollution in China by using the sorted data,and provides a rational understanding of the three key issues discussed later.The fourth chapter focuses on the first issue of this paper,namely foreign direct investment,ecological innovation spillover and environmental pollution.This chapter firstly puts forward the theoretical hypothesis of the problem through literature summarization,and then uses the 267 prefecture-level city databases compiled by the China Urban Statistical Yearbook to conduct an empirical test on the theoretical hypothesis.It is found that in the old period,foreign direct investment will directly Indirectly,environmental pollution is intensified through the spillover of production technology innovation.The environmental effect of foreign direct investment conforms to the “pollution paradise” hypothesis;in the New era,foreign direct investment will directly reduce industrial environmental pollution through the overflow of ecological technology innovation,foreign direct investment.The environmental effect is in line with the "pollution aura" hypothesis.This shows that the environmental effects of foreign direct investment in the new and old period have changed,and the spillover of FDI ecological technology innovation under the change of central environmental policy is the main factor to promote the reduction of industrial pollution emissions.The fifth chapter focuses on the second issue of this paper,foreign direct investment,official assessment methods and environmental pollution.In the context of considering the transformation of the evaluation indicators of local government officials in China,this chapter divides the sample period into “old period” and “New era” according to the GDP assessment method and the diversified assessment method that incorporates the ecological environment and resource conservation into the assessment system.In the two stages,the use of prefecture-level panel data and spatial panel data model to analyze the relationship between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution,and to explore the reasons for the increase and decrease of environmental pollution.The results show that the assessment methods of local government officials will change the work direction and economic development mode of local governments,and significantly affect the environmental effects of foreign direct investment.The sixth chapter focuses on the third issue of this paper,foreign direct investment,regional social filtration and environmental pollution.In the context of the heterogeneous regional environment of foreign direct investment,this chapter analyzes the environmental effects of foreign direct investment between different regions in the “old period” and “New era” from the perspective of social filtering,and discusses the degree of social filtering between regions.Can the difference explain the difference in this conclusion.The phased estimation results show that the social filtering effect of social pollution on foreign direct investment has a negative adjustment effect.This shows that social filtering will affect the region's ability to absorb and digest the ecological spillovers of foreign direct investment,and ultimately affect the level of environmental effects of foreign direct investment in the region.The seventh chapter Conclusion and policy recommendations.This paper reviews the conclusions of this study,puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations on the basis of the conclusions,reviews and summarizes the main conclusions of this paper,and puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations.Finally,in view of the insufficiency of this study,the future research prospects are discussed.The innovations of this study are mainly reflected in the following aspects:1.Re-examine this social hot topic in the context of China's "New era"This paper argues that the literature in recent years has neglected the changes in the institutional environment and social development of China's "New era." Since the "18th National Congress" of the Party,the central government has put forward higher requirements for ecological environmental protection,and clearly proposed to build "beautiful China".Especially since 2016,it has carried out strict environmental supervision over all provinces and cities across the country.The strengthening of environmental regulation has driven the transformation of social production methods,and domestic and foreign-funded enterprises have to increase pollution control.Since 2012,the state's assessment of the assessment of local government officials has also unlinked the relationship between official promotion and economic growth.Environmental protection has been included in the assessment system,which has also greatly slowed economic competition among local governments and environmental policies."Execution is not complete" attitude.In addition,residents' awareness of environmental protection and the improvement of their quality of life have forced local governments to increase their investment in environmental protection.Therefore,this paper re-examines the environmental effects of foreign direct investment in the context of the “New era”of the new economic normal,and at the same time contrasts with the “old period”,which can enrich the theoretical development and practical guiding significance of this topic in the New era.It can also provide an explanation mechanism for the inconsistency of previous scholars' conclusions.2.The theoretical mechanism of FDI environmental effect analysis is constructed.In this paper,the three main economic systems of society,government and enterprise are brought into the framework of FDI environmental effect theory analysis,and the internal relationship among them is clarified,which lays a foundation for empirical analysis.Firstly,with the development of regional society,three kinds of social filtering mechanisms will directly affect the environmental effects of FDI,and indirectly promote government departments to respond to social needs,thereby affecting the environmental effects of FDI.Secondly,the governance behavior of local governments is also affected by central policies and personal interests of officials.Under the external constraints of the social filtering mechanism and the attitude change of local governments,enterprises have changed their attitudes towards green production and ecological innovation.There is a strong logical relationship among these three factors,which together regulates the environmental effects of FDI.3.Decompose the innovation spillover effect of foreign direct investment into production innovation and ecological innovationThe "contamination aura" hypothesis and more empirical research indicate that the existence of more advanced technologies in foreign direct investment will result in technological spillovers and reduce environmental pollution.However,in reality,China's environmental pollution problems are increasingly severe.Obviously,the theory is inconsistent with reality,but very Less scholars have discovered and explored this issue in depth.This paper believes that foreign companies investing in the host area must have comparative advantages,such as production efficiency,product quality,research and development technology,etc.,but even if there is technical spillover of these technologies,it is also the production and operation of the enterprise,not the environmental ecology,foreign direct Only an environmentally-friendly innovation spill that generates ecological technology can have a positive impact on environmental pollution.Therefore,only if the innovation spillover of foreign direct investment is used for production innovation spillover and ecological innovation spillover decomposition,can we judge whether the “pollution aura” is established in China.Therefore,unlike the previous literature,the innovation is regarded as a whole.This paper uses the method proposed by Hamamoto(2006)to decompose the regional total R&D investment into production R&D investment and ecological R&D investment,and analyze whether foreign direct investment overflows through ecological innovation.Affect regional environmental pollution.4.Exploring the differences in the environmental effects of foreign direct investment between regions from the perspective of social filteringSocial filtering refers to a social factor consisting of component factors that hinder the successful development of a regional innovation system or integrated system.It will prevent events that should move toward normal law from happening or even reverse development,such as the existence of economically backward regions.Strong social filtering has greatly reduced the sensitivity of central environmental regulation to regional environmental pollution,or the ability of foreign direct investment technology innovation to have a low spillover capacity,which ultimately affects the positive environmental effects of foreign direct investment.In the past,many scholars have drawn different conclusions about the relationship between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution in different regions,but few can give reasons for analysis.This paper attempts to verify from the perspective of social filtering.