Research On The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Green Economic Efficiency From The Perspective Of Heterogeneity

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has achieved long-term sustained and high-speed growth,creating a miracle of world economic growth,by giving full play to its advantages in resource endowments such as abundant mineral resources and demographic dividend.However,with the rapid economic growth,China has experienced huge resource loss,serious environmental pollution,and ecosystem degradation.The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18 th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China put forward a new development concept of "innovation,coordination,green,openness and sharing",and ecological civilization and green development have become indispensable contents of economic and social development.The report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that Chinese modernization is the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature,and that we adhere to sustainable development and protect the natural and ecological environment like protecting our eyes to form a green production and lifestyle is one of the overall goals of future development.Environmental planning is an important part of environmental protection strategy and an effective policy tool to promote the efficiency of green economy.What is the effect of environmental regulation policies? Can it effectively promote the development of green economy? Can the environmental protection behaviors initiated by the government,enterprises,and the public be consistent with the development goals of green economy? These have become questions that need to be answered urgently under the new development stage and new development concept.In view of this,this paper focuses on the relationship between environmental regulation and green economic efficiency from the perspective of heterogeneity,clarifies the impact mechanism and transmission path of environmental regulation on China’s green economic efficiency,and provides theoretical reference for the government’s implementation of environmental policy under the background of the "Two Mountains Theory".This study first reviews the relevant literature on green economy,green economic efficiency and environmental regulation,summarizes the impact and transmission mechanism of different types of environmental regulation tools on green economic efficiency,and proposes the logical starting point of the paper.Secondly,by constructing a mathematical model,the impact and mechanism of three types of environmental regulation tools on green economic efficiency are analyzed,and the impact of the combination of environmental regulatory tools on green economic efficiency is further discussed,and the transmission mechanism of environmental regulation on green economic efficiency from a heterogeneous perspective is analyzed.Thirdly,on the basis of combing the development and evolution of China’s environmental policy,the undesired output SBM model is introduced to calculate the green economic efficiency of 267prefecture-level cities in China.Finally,the double fixed effect model is used to empirically test the theoretical analysis,and according to the research conclusions and combined with the current situation of China’s green economic development,the realization path and policy suggestions to promote the "win-win" development of China’s economy and ecology are put forward from the perspective of heterogeneous environmental regulation.The main work and conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)From the three levels of mathematical analysis,internal mechanism and transmission mechanism,this paper attempts to construct a theoretical analysis framework of the impact of heterogeneous environmental regulation on green economic efficiency,including command and control,market incentive and public participation.Heterogeneous environmental regulation has both positive effects on enterprises,such as innovation compensation and survival of the fittest,as well as negative effects such as additional costs and resource crowding,and also due to differences in policies and implementation between regions,resulting in short-term and long-term differences in green economic efficiency,and between regions.Command-and-control,market incentives,and public participation environmental regulation have their own advantages and disadvantages in the individual effects of green economic efficiency,and the synergistic effect will enhance the effect because of each other’s complementarity.From the perspective of the transmission mechanism,environmental regulation will promote green technology innovation due to the innovation compensation effect and survival of the fittest effect,and will produce resource substitution and industrial upgrading due to the additional cost effect and resource crowding out effect,and ultimately improve the efficiency of the green economy.(2)Taking prefecture-level cities in China as a sample,the empirical results show t hat there is a significant U-shaped relationship between the overall environmental regula tion and green economic efficiency,that is,first inhibiting,then promoting,and finally p romoting the improvement of green economic efficiency.The green economic efficiency of prefecture-level cities in China shows an upward trend,but there are obvious regiona l heterogeneous differences,and the gap between the green economic efficiency level in the eastern and western regions is large,and the overall development of green economic efficiency level is uneven.The test of regional heterogeneity showed that there were gre at differences in the intensity of action between regions,and the overall environmental r egulation in the eastern region had the strongest impact on the efficiency of green econo my.(3)The results of different types of environmental regulations on the efficiency of green economy will be different,and there will be regional heterogeneity.The impact of command-and-control environmental regulation on green economic efficiency shows an inverted U-shaped relationship on the whole.Command-and-control environmental regulation has significantly promoted the improvement of the efficiency of China’s green economy in the early stage,and this result is significant in both national and regional samples.There is a significant U-shaped relationship between market-incentive environmental regulation and green economic efficiency,and the results of regional heterogeneity test show that this influence relationship is significant in the eastern,central and northeastern regions,but not in the western region.The participatory environmental regulation significantly promoted the improvement of the green economic efficiency of prefecture-level cities in China,and showed linear characteristics,which was significantly present in the national sample and sub-regional samples.(4)If the combination of the two approaches is adopted under heterogeneous environmental regulation,ideal policy objectives may be achieved.The empirical results of adding the interaction term show that public participation environmental regulation can strengthen the positive impact of command-and-control to regulation of environment and market-incentive-based environmental regulations on green economic efficiency,so that the inflection point of command-and-control environmental regulations moves to the right and the inflection point of market-incentive environmental regulation on green economic efficiency arrives in advance.(5)The mechanism test found that the overall environmental regulation is conducive to improving the efficiency of green economy through green technology innovation and green industrial structure upgrading.Further research shows that the mediating effects of green technology innovation and green industrial structure upgrading exist in commandand-control environmental regulation,market incentive environmental regulation and public participation environmental regulation.The innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)In terms of theoretical framework,multiple types of environmental regulation tools and urban green economic efficiency are included in the same analytical framework,which expands the relevant research on environmental regulation theory and supplements the theoretical literature on the promotion of green economic efficiency by the combination of environmental regulatory tools.(2)In the exploration of the mechanism,from the two aspects of green technology innovation and green industrial structure upgrading,the transmission mechanism of environmental regulation tools affecting green economic efficiency from the perspective of heterogeneity is analyzed and discussed,and the mechanism analysis of environmental regulation affecting green economic efficiency is deepened.(3)In the empirical test,the effects and mechanisms of multiple types of environmental regulations on green economic efficiency are analyzed from the national level,the eastern,central,western and northeast regional levels,which not only ensures the comprehensive objectivity of the empirical conclusions,but also helps different regions to formulate differentiated environmental regulation schemes according to their own development characteristics.At the same time,it is often difficult to find suitable instrumental variables in the discussion of the impact of environmental regulation on green economic efficiency in previous studies,so this paper tries to introduce the difference-in-difference method of quasinatural experiments to carefully identify the endogeneity of environmental regulation on green economic efficiency,and further ensure the reliability of the empirical results.