The Impact Of Environment Regulation On Employment

Driven by reform and opening up,China's economy is advancing rapidly and the people's living standards are improving day by day.However,the past extensive development model has also brought severe challenges to society,such as environmental pollution,ecological destruction and so on.The health and quality of life of residents are seriously threatened under long-term and large-area severe haze.It is a general trend for local governments to strengthen environmental regulation and protect the ecological environment.However,the government has introduced various measures,including restricting or even stopping production of polluting enterprises.Will this affect the level of employment? As a populous country,stable employment is the realization of High unemployment rate will lead to a series of contradictions and conflicts,which will affect the unity and stability of society and hinder the further development of economy.Under such circumstances,it is of great significance to study the impact of environmental regulation on employment.From the perspective of threshold effect and spatial effect of environmental regulation affecting employment,this paper analyzes the two aspects of regional employment and industry employment respectively.Firstly,the influence mechanism of environmental regulation on employment is expounded,in which the threshold effect includes the supply effect of enterprise angle and the demand effect of consumer angle,while the spatial effect mainly consists of two aspects: squeeze effect and absorption effect.Then,based on the provincial panel data from 2000 to 2016 and the industrial panel data from 2005 to2016,the employment effect of environmental regulation is analyzed empirically by constructing panel threshold model and spatial panel model.The following conclusions were made:First,the impact of environmental regulation on employment in provincial areas has a threshold effect.At present,the overall level of environmental regulation in China is at the stage of restraining employment.The level of environmental regulation can further improve and cross the threshold,can achieve the role of promoting employment.The environmental regulation in the eastern region is mainly to promoteemployment,while the environmental regulation in the central and western regions is more destructive to employment.Second,environmental regulation will adversely affect the employment level of the industry as a whole.However,the employment performance of light pollution industry is promoted,the employment of moderate pollution industry has experienced a change from unfavorable to favorable,and the employment performance of serious pollution industry is restrained.Third,both formal environmental regulation and informal environmental regulation have spatial effects on employment.The improvement of the regulation degree in the surrounding areas can absorb the labor force to transfer to the region and have a negative impact on the local employment.Forth,the interactive effects of environmental regulation and technological innovation have different effects on different regions and industries.In the eastern region and mildly and moderately polluted industries,the interaction between the two has no significant effect on employment,but in the central and western regions and heavily polluted industries,the interaction between the two has a significant positive effect on employment.