A Study On Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Industrial Structure Change In China

With environmental degradation and the gradual exhaustion of resources, our country is developing and implementing many different styles of environmental regulation to coordinate the contradictions between economic growth and environmental protection. At the same time, China’s industrial structure has undergone major changes. Do these environmental regulations have any effects on the changes of industrial structure? If they do, what are transmission paths, and are there any differences between different styles of environmental regulation on the industrial structure change in china?On the basis of previous studies, first of all, this paper summarizes that due to the market demand, technology innovation and international trade, environmental regulation has proven impacts on industrial structure change. Then, we analyze the implementation of the environmental regulation and the situation of industrial structure change. It is shown that environmental regulation had exerted a significant positive effect, but the environment problem is still serious, and industrial structure is not reasonable in most regions. And then, we selected data in thirty provinces from 2003 to 2012, using static panel model to empirically test the effects on industrial structure rationalization and industrial structure optimization made separately by different styles of environmental regulation, and compares the differences of the effect among three main areas in China, east coastal part, middle part and west. It shows that expenditure-style environmental regulation promotes the development of industrial structure optimization, but impedes the development of industrial structure rationalization to some extent as was indicated by the failure on the test of significance. On the other hand, the relationship between investment-style environmental regulation and industrial structure rationalization or optimization is inverted as "U" model, which means it is good for the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure within a certain range, while highly regulation has a certain inhibitory effect. In addition, the study also reveals that the influences on industrial structure change are different among east, middle and west part of China. In the end, this paper also puts forward relevant suggestions and indicates the further research direction.