Research On The Impacts Of Environmental Pollution On Industrial Agglomeration In China

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization,China also bears relatively serious environmental costs.China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization have been accompanied by serious environmental costs.The relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution has gradually become a heated topic in the field of ecological economy.Existing studies have paid more attention to the environmental externalities of industrial agglomeration,while few scholars study the reverse impacts of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration.The current severe environmental pollution problem has severely affected the quality of life for residents and socio-economic development.At the same time,its impacts on the development of industrial agglomeration have become impossible to be ignored.On the one hand,environmental pollution can seriously affect the physical and mental health of local residents,and further reduces effective labor supply and labor productivity,thereby adversely affecting industrial development.On the other hand,environmental pollution can also cause a large outflow of talents and increase the environmental cost of enterprises.The continuously shrinking profit level will not only reduce the total factor productivity of enterprises,but also increase the willingness of related enterprises to shut down or relocate.The choice of enterprises’ entering and exiting the market will also affect the high-quality development of regional industrial agglomeration.Therefore,on the basis of existing research,this paper deeply investigates the impacts of environmental pollution on China’s regional industrial agglomeration,and further formulates regulatory policies for the coordinated development of regional environment and industrial agglomeration,which has important practical significance to promote China to form a green development mode,optimize the regional industrial layout,build a high-quality industrial agglomeration system,and achieve the goal of a beautiful China.Based on the research background,the main research contents and conclusions of this paper are as follows.(1)The model construction and mechanism analysis of environmental pollution affecting industrial agglomeration.In this section,environmental pollution,environmental regulation,cross-border pollution and manufacturers’ rational expectations are included into the constructed capital model to obtain explicit solutions for variables such as industrial agglomeration,capital stock and market share,and to explore the mechanism of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration.The results show that: First,the total effect of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration can be decomposed into demand reduction effect,cost increase effect and home market effect.Under the combined action of the three effects,environmental pollution has a nonlinear impact on industrial agglomeration.Second,there is a two-way interactive relationship between environmental pollution and industrial agglomeration.Third,considering the effects of transboundary pollution,there exists a spatial spillover effect of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration.Fourth,environmental pollution can have an indirect impact on industrial agglomeration through variables such as environmental regulation,labor productivity,or industry efficiency.(2)The analysis of the interactive effects between environmental pollution and industrial agglomeration.Based on China’s provincial panel data,this section conducts an empirical analysis on the direct effects and interactive effects of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration from the perspectives of the whole country,sub-regional,and sub-industry respectively,using the system generalized moment method and three-stage least square method.We find that: First,as far as China as a whole is concerned,there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental pollution and industrial agglomeration.When the environmental pollution is below the inflection point,environmental pollution will promote industrial agglomeration,but when the degree of environmental pollution exceeds the inflection point value,it shows a significant inhibitory effect on industrial agglomeration.Second,there is a significant interactive effect between environmental pollution and industrial agglomeration.While environmental pollution has a significant nonlinear effect on industrial agglomeration,industrial agglomeration in turn will also have a certain impact on environmental pollution,that is,industrial agglomeration will play a role in promoting environmental pollution.Third,the existence of the interactive effects can be proved by both the sub-regional and sub-industry samples,though there are differences in the characteristics of such interactive effects in different regions or industries.(3)The analysis of the spatial effects of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration.Based on the panel data of China’s provinces and prefecture level cities,this section constructs the dynamic spatial Durbin model to analyze the spatial spillover effects of environmental pollution from the perspectives of the whole country,sub-regional,and different types of industrial pollution respectively.The results show that: first,under the three spatial weight matrices,both industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution in China are characterized by global spatial positive correlation and local spatial positive correlation.Second,for China as a whole,environmental pollution has a spatial spillover effect on industrial agglomeration,that is,environmental pollution in the surrounding regions is harmful to the development of industrial agglomeration in local region.Through comparison,it can be seen that the spatial spillover effects of industrial sulfur dioxide and industrial waste pollution on industrial agglomeration are more significant than that of industrial smoke and dust pollution.Third,the short-term and long-term indirect effects of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration are significant,suggesting that environmental pollution has an inhibitory effect on industrial agglomeration in surrounding regions,and that the long-term effects are gradually intensified compared to short-term effects.(4)The analysis of the mediating effects of environmental pollution on industrial agglomeration.Applying the mediating effect test and threshold regression models,the mediating effects of environmental regulation,labor productivity and industry efficiency are explored from the perspectives of the whole country,sub-regional,and sub-industry respectively.We find that: first,environmental regulation serves as the mediating variable of environmental pollution affecting industrial agglomeration.It can be seen that the current increase in environmental pollution in China will increase the intensity of environmental regulations,leading to a compliance costs effect of environmental regulations,which inhibits industrial agglomeration.Second,labor productivity can play a mediating role in the process of environmental pollution affecting industrial agglomeration.It is revealed that environmental pollution can reduce the labor productivity by damaging workers’ health,thus inhibiting the development of regional industrial agglomeration.Third,industrial efficiency can act as a mediating variable in the process of environmental pollution affecting industrial agglomeration.It can be seen that the current aggravation of China’s environmental pollution will lead to the reduction of industrial efficiency,and thereby inhibit the development of industrial agglomeration.Based on the above-mentioned main conclusions,suggestions concerning high-quality industrial agglomeration and environmental preservation are proposed.These policies mainly include: the agglomeration development policies considering the impacts of pollution,the green development policies to reduce industrial emissions,the joint prevention and control policies to control transboundary pollution,the accurate regulatory policies to promote cluster development,the quality enhancement policy focusing on pollution control and the sustainable development policy emphasizing efficiency improvement.