Local Government Competition,industrial Agglomeration And Green Total Factor Productivity

Environmental problems are becoming a more and more significant issue in China's economic development.In particular,how to raise the green total factor productivity and achieve an environmental and economical friendly development has become a focus for researchers.China's economic development has been under the leadership of the government for a long time.Especially after the reform of the tax sharing system,local governments have more autonomy.Under the incentives of economy and politics,local governments' competitive behavior has caused an important influence to the the growth of green total factor productivity.At the same time,as the most obvious spatial distribution characteristic of economic activities,industrial agglomeration has become the primary stimulation for regional economic growth,but its negative externalities also affect the promotion of green total factor productivity.Therefore,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study the influence of local government competition and industrial agglomeration on the green total factor productivity in order to realize the green transformation and sustainable development of China's economy.On the basis of combing the relevant literatures,the article firstly analyzes the mechanism of the effect of industrial agglomeration and local government competition on green total factor productivity.Then based on the panel data of 30 provinces(cities and autonomous regions)in China from 2000 to 2016,using the directional distance function with ML model to measure the green total factor productivity index and its decomposition index of China,and furthermore observing the relationship between industrial agglomeration,local government competition and green total factor productivity.Next,taking industrial agglomeration and local government competition as the core explanatory variables,this paper empirically tests the impact of the two factors on the green total factor productivity and their regional differences through the panel fixed effect model.Finally,this article brings local government competition and industrial agglomeration into the same regression model,and introduces the interaction between them,empirically analyzing the synergetic effect of them on green total factor productivity.The main findings of this paper are as follows:(1)During the sample period,China's green total factor productivity tends to increase,and technological progress is the the driving force for its growth.Moreover,the growth rate of green total factor productivity in the eastern region is faster than that in the central and western regions.(2)The relationship between industrial agglomeration and green total factor productivity is a "U-shaped" nonlinear relationship and there is regional heterogeneity.The industrial agglomeration in the eastern region significantly promoted the growth of green total factor productivity,and the relationship between industrial agglomeration and green total factor productivity in the western region showed an inverted U-shaped relationship.The impact of the central region is not significant.(3)Local government competition by attracting FDI is conducive to the growth of China's green total factor productivity.And the promotion of the western region is greater than that of the eastern and central regions.(4)Local government competition by fiscal expenditure promotes China's green total factor productivity as a whole,in which the higher proportion of expenditure on human capital investment,the more improvement of China's green total factor productivity,but the higher proportion of expenditure on science and technology will restrain the increase of green total factor productivity in the current period.The promotion effect of fiscal expenditure competition on green total factor productivity in the eastern region is obviously greater than that in the central and western regions.(5)The synergy between local government competition by attracting FDI and industrial agglomeration hinders the growth of green total factor productivity.However,the synergy between local government competition by fiscal expenditure and industrial agglomeration has no obvious effect on green total factor productivity.According to the conclusions,the policy enlightenment of this paper lies in: While continuing to promote the development of industrial agglomeration,we should actively cultivate innovative industrial clusters to promote the upgrading of industrial structure.At the same time,local governments should transform their functions quickly,and make the structure of fiscal expenditure optimized,improve the level of attracting investment and help localities to strengthen advantage industries.