| Over the past 40 years,China’s economic development has made remarkable achievements.Relying on the factor price advantage and the factor-driven growth model,we have made a significant leap from the ranks of poor countries to the ranks of upper middle-income countries.However,this development model has also become unsustainable as dividends of China’s traditional factor endowment structure,which had long supported economic growth subsides,and environmental problems have become the price paid for economic development.The problems of serious environmental pollution,weakening of the advantages of resource elements and ecosystem degradation have gradually come to the fore,making ecological and environmental issues a key concern for China’s current economic and social construction.With the slowdown of world economy,especially the influence of COVID-19,countries have focused on the development of industry,especially highend manufacturing,in order to cope with the challenges brought by the perplexing economic situation.Whether environmental protection and industrial development can go hand in hand has become a key issue for the green development of economy and society in the new era.As environmental regulation is the main measure of industrial environmental regulation,and total factor productivity(TFP)is the core driving force of industrial development,it is particularly important and urgent to study the impact of environmental regulation on industrial TFP.According to the research line of "questions raising-theoretical analysis-Empirical Analysis-policy suggestions",this paper systematically analyzes the impact of environmental regulation on China’s industrial TFP.Firstly,by reviewing the existing literature,this paper summarizes and analyzes the impact and effect of environmental regulation and TFP,in which two important sources of environmental regulation on TFP are identified,namely,technological innovation and resource allocation.Secondly,by constructing a theoretical model and analyzing the impact mechanism,this paper discusses the possible impact path of environmental regulation on TFP from the theoretical level,and holds that environmental regulation can not only directly affect TFP by changing enterprise costs,but also indirectly affect TFP by affecting the level of enterprise technological innovation and resource allocation,And these effects may show a nonlinear relationship due to different action results.Thirdly,based on the measurement and characteristic facts of environmental regulation and industrial TFP,this paper uses the DOP decomposition method to decompose the aggregate productivity of China’s industrial industry,and measures the contribution level of technological innovation and resource allocation to industrial TFP respectively.Finally,the impact of environmental regulation on TFP is empirically examined,and research conclusions and policy enlightenment are proposed based on the empirical results.The main findings of this paper are as follows:(1)The overall intensity of China’s environmental regulation is in a "U" shape,with large differences between industries and regions.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,the intensity of environmental regulation in the western region is the highest,followed by the middle,and the eastern region is the lowest.The intensity of environmental regulation is closely related to the layout of polluting industries.At industry level,the manufacturing industry has the highest intensity of environmental regulation,followed by the mining industry,and the lowest by the electricity,heat,gas and water production and supply industry;Further,the manufacturing industry is subdivided according to the different processing objects.It is found that the environmental regulation of light textile manufacturing industry is significantly stronger than that of resource processing manufacturing industry and mechanical and electronic manufacturing industry,and the regulation intensity of resource processing manufacturing industry is the lowest;In terms of industry pollution intensity,the higher the pollution intensity is,the stronger the environmental regulation intensity is.(2)China’s industrial TFP has shown an overall upward trend.From the inter provincial level,the industrial TFP of most provinces(cities)in China has increased to varying degrees compared to the beginning of the period,with some provinces and cities displaying an inverted "U" growth trend.From a subregional perspective,the TFP of industry in the eastern region is significantly higher than that in the central and western regions.From the industry level,the TFP of mining industry is the highest and most stable,followed by manufacturing industry,and lowest in the power,heat,gas,production and supply industry.The TFP is lowest in the light textile manufacturing industry.From the perspective of enterprise ownership,central stateowned enterprises always maintain a high level of TFP;The growth of TFP of collective enterprises is relatively strong;the TFP of local state-owned enterprises increased significantly,with public enterprises following closely behind;Foreignfunded enterprises,private enterprises and other enterprises have not differed greatly in their TFP levels,all having increased to a certain extent,but the growth is significantly weaker than that of other types of enterprises.From the perspective of different pollution intensity,enterprises with high TFP are mainly concentrated in moderately polluting industries,and the growth trend of TFP in heavily polluting industries is significantly lower than that in lightly polluting industries.(3)The implementation of environmental regulation can change the cost of industrial production,which has a direct impact on the TFP of industry.If the cost growth is decomposed without considering price and output growth,TFP can be divided into three parts: first,the direct increase of enterprise cost due to the increased emission reduction investment caused by environmental regulation;Second,the change in cost caused by technological change;and the third,the change in the combination of enterprise production factors caused by regulation.It can be seen that the implementation of environmental regulation policy has forced industrial enterprises to change production mode,implement green production,which led to changes in the cost function.(4)Environmental regulation can affect industrial TFP by mediating technological innovation and resource allocation.Starting from the path of technological innovation,technological innovation is the core driving force for the improvement of enterprise TFP.The implementation of environmental regulation may have two effects on enterprise technological innovation,"innovation crowding out" and "innovation compensation".Starting from the path of resource reallocation,reasonable resource allocation is conducive to the improvement of productivity.The implementation of environmental regulation may bring about two effects on the resource reallocation of industrial enterprises,on the one hand,the adjustment of resource reallocation inside and outside the industry,and on the other hand the adjustment of factor allocation within the enterprise.By employing mediation effects to test the intermediary role of technological innovation and resource allocation between environmental regulation and industrial TFP,it is found that technological innovation and resource allocation have significant partial mediating effects on environmental regulation and TFP of industrial enterprises,being around 33% and 66%of the total efficiency respectively.Further,as double mediating variables,they have significant complete mediating effect on the impact of environmental regulation and TFP of industrial enterprises,and the multiple mediating effect is about 87% of the total efficiency of environmental regulation on TFP of industrial enterprises,which verifies the theoretical inference above from an empirical perspective.(5)Technological innovation and resource allocation have different contributions to the improvement of TFP,and their contributions to TFP are also differentiated in industries with different pollution intensities.The decomposition results show that the positive effect of technological innovation on the growth of industrial TFP is significantly higher than that of resource allocation.Technological innovation and inter industry resource allocation account for a large proportion of the contribution to the growth of industrial TFP.In other words,the adjustment and improvement of enterprise technological innovation and industrial resource allocation have a greater impact on industrial TFP.TFP growth in industries with different pollution intensity.The improvement of resource allocation,especially the adjustment of resource allocation in the industry,is more conducive to the improvement of TFP in heavily and slightly polluted industries.It can be seen that with the increase of pollution intensity,the more obvious the effect of technological innovation on the TFP of the industry,the greater the proportion of positive contribution,and the smaller the reverse impact of resource allocation.(6)There is a "U" relationship between environmental regulation and China’s industrial TFP.Firstly,by industry,the impact of environmental regulation on the TFP of light textile manufacturing industry,resource processing manufacturing industry and power,heat,gas and water production and supply industry shows a significant "U" relationship;The improvement of environmental regulation leads to the significant decline of TFP of mining enterprises;For the mechanical and electronic manufacturing industry,the impact of the implementation of environmental regulation on the TFP of enterprises in the industry is not statistically significant.Secondly,according to different pollution intensity,the effect of environmental regulation on the productivity of moderately polluting enterprises is not significant;For heavy polluting enterprises and light polluting enterprises,the impact of environmental regulation on TFP is significant and in a "U" shape.Finally,from a subregional perspective,the impact of environmental regulation on TFP of industrial enterprises in the eastern,central and western regions shows a significant "U" relationship;as environmental regulations increase,the eastern region is the first to reach the inflection point so that environmental regulations positively promote the TFP of enterprises,followed by the central region and finally the western region.(7)The impact of environmental regulation on industrial technological innovation and resource allocation is a nonlinear "U" relationship.In the empirical study of environmental regulation on industrial technological innovation,it is further found that for industries with different pollution intensity,the impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation in moderately and slightly polluting industries is "U" type,while in heavily polluting industries,it is just the opposite,showing a significant inverted "U" type.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,the impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation of industrial enterprises in the eastern,central and western regions shows a significant "U" relationship.In the empirical study of environmental regulation on industrial resource allocation,it is further found that for industries with different pollution intensity,environmental regulation significantly affects the resource allocation level of industries with severe pollution intensity,and this impact is in a nonlinear "U" shape;The impact of environmental regulation on resource mismatch in slightly polluted industries is just the opposite,showing a significant inverted "U" shape;The impact of environmental regulation on resource mismatch in moderately polluting industries is not significant.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,the impact of environmental regulation on industrial resource allocation in the eastern and central region shows a negative linear relationship,that is,the improvement of regulation can improve the industrial resource mismatch in the region to a certain extent;The western region is the same as the benchmark regression,and both show a significant "U" relationship. |
