| Manufacturing industry is an important source of material wealth and has made great contributions to China’s miraculous economic growth.However,the extensive manufacturing development model,which emphasizes quantity for efficiency,has ignored the negative effects such as low efficiency,waste of resources and environmental damage for a long time,resulting in the “dilemma” between economic development and environmental protection.In this context,China’s manufacturing industry urgently needs to improve the development quality and carry out green transformation.Its essence is to improve the green efficiency of manufacturing industry.There is no doubt that technological progress is the key to unlocking the shackles of resources and environment,but it should be realized that not all technological progress is environment-friendly.Only the appropriate technological progress that can effectively promote the green transformation of manufacturing industry,which is the real driving force.Therefore,when discussing the impact of environmental regulations,the important external constraint,on the green transformation of manufacturing industry,we should pay attention to the substantive question,that is,whether environmental regulations release the technological driving force of green transformation of manufacturing industry,which is of great significance for China’s manufacturing industry to accurately enter the green development track under the current environmental regulation system.Based on this,from the perspective of technological progress,this paper deeply explores the impact mechanism of heterogeneous environmental regulation on the green transformation of manufacturing industry,focusing on the following four questions.First,how does China’s environmental regulation change,and what are the trends and laws of manufacturing green efficiency in time and space? Second,how does environmental regulation affect the green transformation of manufacturing industry,and what is the technological progress mechanism?Third,what are the heterogeneous effects of different types of environmental regulations on the green transformation of manufacturing industry,and which type of environmental regulation can more effectively promote the green transformation of manufacturing industry?Fourth,what is the actual effect of technological progress on the green transformation of manufacturing industry under environmental regulation? How to optimize the environmental regulation system to enhance the technological driving force of green transformation of manufacturing industry? In order to answer these questions,this paper first explores the basic factual characteristics of China’s environmental regulations and green transformation of manufacturing industry;and based on the retrospective analysis of classical theories and with the help of the economic analysis framework of cost-benefit,this paper clarifies the logical mechanism of environmental regulations,technological progress and green transformation of manufacturing industry,puts forward a conceptual model that can dominate the whole paper,and defines the central argument.Then,the heterogeneous effects of different types of environmental regulations are introduced into Cournot duopoly model to judge the effectiveness of various environmental regulations in theory.After that,from the two aspects of macro province and micro enterprise,this paper investigates the influence mechanism of three types of environmental regulations: the mandatory environmental regulation,the market-based environmental regulation,and the voluntary environmental regulation.Finally,by comparing and analyzing the real chemical production technology,this paper obtains the actual effect of technological progress promoting the green transformation of manufacturing industry under environmental regulations,and discusses the feasible path to optimize the environmental regulation system and enhance the technological driving force of green transformation of manufacturing industry.The key conclusions of this paper are as follows.First of all,China’s environmental regulation system has been continuously improved,gradually forming a pattern of integration of mandatory,market-based and voluntary environmental regulations,mainly showing the characteristics of regulation mode from“simple and single” to “complex and diverse”,governance mode from “government regulation” to “multi-governance”,legal concept from “performing obligations” to“implementing rights”,and prevention and control route from “end governance” to “source reduction and process control”.The green efficiency of manufacturing industry and its green technology innovation index in 30 provinces of China from 2003 to 2019 showed a fluctuating upward trend,and the two trends converged,but the development trend of green technology efficiency index was different,showing a slight decline as a whole.The green efficiency of China’s manufacturing industry has obvious spatial positive correlation in most periods.Secondly,the essence of the green transformation of manufacturing industry driven by environmental regulation is to promote the upgrading of general technological progress to green technological progress,and the transformation of progressive technological progress to subversive technological progress,so as to release the technological driving force.Specifically,environmental regulations can promote the green transformation of manufacturing industry through three micro mechanisms: production technological progress,pollution reduction technological progress and energy utilization technological progress.Environmental regulations have both negative “cost effect” and positive “compensation effect” on technological progress.Therefore,the final impact of environmental regulation on the green transformation of manufacturing industry through technological progress is uncertain.Different types of environmental regulations have heterogeneous effects on the green transformation of manufacturing industry.Theoretically,the incentive effect of the market & cost-based environmental regulation is the most significant,followed by the market& investment-based,the voluntary and the mandatory environmental regulation.Through empirical analysis,it is found that the reason for this difference lies in the different technological progress mechanisms of environmental regulations affecting the green transformation of manufacturing industry.Thirdly,the mandatory environmental regulation has a significant inhibitory effect on the green transformation of manufacturing industry.The reason is that the mandatory environmental regulation mainly affects the green transformation of manufacturing industry by adjusting the compliance cost,which lacks innovation incentive effect and is easy to induce pollution transfer,which leads manufacturing enterprises to choose strategic ways rather than long-term technological upgrading and transformation to achieve the regulatory objectives.The market & cost-based and the market & investment environmental regulation have incentive effects on the green transformation of manufacturing industry,but the effect of the market & cost-based environmental regulation is more significant.The main reason is that the innovation compensation effect released by the market & cost-based environmental regulation is stronger,which can more effectively improve the green technology innovation ability of manufacturing industry.The impact of the voluntary environmental regulation on the green transformation of manufacturing industry is not obvious.The reason is that the voluntary environmental regulation generally does not have mandatory binding force.The implementation effect depends on intangible conditions such as environmental awareness and hidden income,and has a weak impact on the key driving force of green transformation of manufacturing industry,namely green technology innovation.Finally,under the influence of environmental regulations,the upgrading of traditional chemical technology to green chemical technology is conducive to the chemical manufacturing industry to achieve a win-win situation of economic and environmental benefits,which verifies the theoretical and empirical conclusions of this paper from the practical aspect.Through theoretical and empirical analysis,this paper puts forward a series of feasible paths to optimize the environmental regulation system and enhance the technological driving force of green transformation of manufacturing industry,such as flexible use of the combination of environmental regulation policies;formulate environmental regulation policies according to regional conditions;strengthen the impact assessment of mandatory environmental regulations;focus on deepening the environmental tax system and the environmental rights trading system;strengthen the precise implementation of special investment in environment-friendly technology;strengthen the disclosure of enterprise environmental information,improve the channels for public participation,and cooperate with the use of “green nudge”;improve the green technology innovation support policy,the opening-up policy,and the green financial system.Compared with the current literature,the three main marginal contributions of this paper are as follows.Firstly,from the perspective of technological progress,this paper discusses the substantive issues of the impact of environmental regulation on the green transformation of manufacturing industry,and provides a new analytical perspective for the research of related issues.Secondly,this paper puts forward the conceptual model of environmental regulations affecting the green transformation of manufacturing industry through technological progress,integrates the heterogeneous effects of different types of environmental regulations into Cournot duopoly model,and makes marginal expansion on the basis of the current theoretical model.Thirdly,this paper extends from the macro provincial aspect to the micro enterprise aspect,and relying on the real chemical production technology,obtains the actual effect that technological progress under environmental regulation can bring to the green transformation of manufacturing industry,and provides more sufficient and more realistic empirical evidence for the research in related fields. |
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