Research On The Effect Of Environmental Regulation On High-quality Development And Its Conduction Path

Human development cannot exist without natural resource and ecological environment.In recent decades,the rapid economic growth of China has made severe pressure in the aspect of resource and environment which posed the threat to sustainable development.Since the 19th CPC National Congress was convened,the General Secretary Xi Jinping had emphasized time and again the importance of ecological civilization construction and high-quality development which shows us the urgency to promote high-quality development."Establishing and improving a green,low-carbon and circular economic system" has pointed out the direction for high-quality development,and resource saving and environment protecting will be the key to break the dilemma.It is hard to solve environment problem effectively by only relying market mechanism because of the externalities of resource and environment.The government plays a key role in environmental protection and governance.Environmental regulation is the optimal policy tool to promote high-quality development that not only controls pollution and protects ecology but also promotes technological innovation and industrial upgrading.China has introduced a series of environmental regulation and policy,all of them has different implementation effects.Therefore,it is crucial to promote high-quality development by quantizing and revealing the high-quality development effects of environmental regulation and clarifying different effects of environmental regulation tools of different types.In addition,under the background of environmental decentralization and regional development competition,there are deviations in environmental regulation implementation by local governments,which weakens the expected effect of environmental regulation.Therefore,it has important practical significance and policy value to explore the high-quality development effect of environmental regulation under institutional constraints.Based on the above background,this paper has studied the high-quality development effect of environmental regulation.Firstly of all,this paper sort the literature of environmental regulation on high-quality development,constructs a theoretical model including natural resources and environmental quality under the endogenous growth theory framework which reveals the direct effect of environmental regulation on economic growth.This paper also identify the four following conduction channel of environment regulation:technological innovation,industrial structure upgrade,foreign direct investment,and human capital allocation,promote efficiency,coordination,green,share and stable development,and finally improve high-quality development conduction path.Secondly,using 286 cities data of China from 2006 to 2019,this paper reveals direct effects and conduction path,and examines the heterogeneity effects and spatial effects of them.Furthermore,this paper evaluates policy effects and conduction path by three types of environmental regulation tools:command-controlled.market-motivated,and public-participated.Finally,this paper explores the impact of central-local environmental regulation coordination and local-local environmental regulation coordination on high-quality development.In order to promote high-quality development,this paper takes into account three aspects of environmental regulation intensity,environmental regulation type,and environmental regulation coordination,explores the appropriate environmental regulation intensity and optimal conduction path,selects the most effective environmental regulation tools under different scenarios and coordination paths.and finds central-local coordination strategies and local-local coordination methods to enhance the implementation of local government environmental regulations.Through theoretical analysis and empirical research,the conclusion of this paper is as follows:(1)Appropriately environmental regulation can improve high-quality development,but the excessive is opposite.Environmental regulation can enhance high-quality development by forcing green technology innovation,promoting industrial structure rationalization,attracting foreign direct investment,and improving human capital space allocation to promote efficient,coordinated,green and stable development.Among them,the optimal path to improve high-quality development is by adopting moderate environmental regulation,stimulating technological innovation,especially green technological innovation,promoting regional efficiency improvement and green upgrade.(2)Market-motivated environmental regulation has a long-term effect on high-quality development,and it increases over time.Command-controlled environmental regulation has a short-term effect,but it weakens over time.Compared with the above,public-participated environmental regulation is relatively weaker.In addition,due to different implementation environments,those three environmental regulation tools have different effects on high-quality development:the higher government financial pressure and stronger corporate financing constraints are disadvantageous to all the three kinds of tools to be effective.The stronger environmental supervision will make command-controlled and public-participated environmental regulations are more effective but disadvantageous to market-motivated type.The population size has a stronger role in promoting the high-quality development effect of command-controlled environmental regulation.In addition,among the four types of conduction paths,the higher the development level of producer services is,the stronger the high-quality development effect of the three environmental regulation tools is.The level of innovation,the concentration of human capital and the level of opening to the outside world have a stronger role in promoting the high-quality development effect of market-motivated environmental regulation.(3)Under the environmental decentralization system background,local governments will weaken the promotion effect of environmental regulations on high-quality development for pursuit of economic benefits and not fully implement environmental regulations of central government.Strengthening the central-local collaborate relationship can reduce the loss effect on high-quality development.At the same time,"race to the top" coordination in local-local environmental regulations enforcement promotes a high-quality development model of mutual assistance,while"race to the bottom" promotes a high-quality development model of mutual harm.Based on the research conclusion,we put forward suggestions to promote high-quality development from following five aspects:(1)Establish an environmental regulation intensity adjustment mechanism in view of development goals and environmental pollution levels of different perioed of time.At the same time,formulate environmental regulation intensity according to different regional implementation conditions and environmental carrying capacity.(2)Optimize the high-quality development conduction mechanism.Strengthen technological innovation and deepen restructuring industrial structure,and improve the opening degree and optimize human capital employment.(3)Give full play to the positive spatial spillover effect of environmental regulation in urban agglomerations and central cities,promote the coordinated management of environmental pollution in adjacent areas,and accelerate to promote the coordinated regional development strategy.(4)Clarify the implementation timing and application scope of the three types of environmental regulation tools:command-controlled,market-motivated and public-participated,and give full play to the overall effect of environmental regulation tools combination.(5)Implement the vertical management system of environmental protection agencies,and strengthen the closeness of the central-local relationship.Incorporate environmental indicators into the evaluation system for local government officials promotion,and establish a healthy competition mechanism for environmental regulation among local governments.