Environmental Regulation,Technological Innovation And Green Total Factor Productivity

Green is the main theme of current economic development,which requires regional economic development to take into account both economic benefits and ecological and environmental benefits.Therefore,improving Green Total Factor Productivity has become the core task and important goal of regional economic development.Environmental regulation is an important means to control the ecological environment,which can make up for the lack of negative externalities in solving environmental pollution problems by market mechanism alone.At the same time,environmental regulation can promote the level of regional technological innovation by triggering Porter effect.However,different types of environmental regulations have different effects or paths on regional economy,and the effects of the same type of environmental regulations have regional heterogeneity.Since then,incorporating technological innovation into the research framework,and detailed discussion and analysis of the influence of different types of environmental regulation on Green Total Factor Productivity is of great significance for the formulation of environmental policies and the improvement of Green Total Factor Productivity.In this paper,technological innovation is brought into the analytical framework,and the relationship between environmental regulation,technological innovation and green total factor productivity is discussed.Firstly,according to different actors,environmental regulation is divided into formal environmental regulation and informal environmental regulation,which are measured by Python software and improved entropy method respectively.Then,the quantitative evaluation index system of regional Green Total Factor Productivity is constructed and measured by DDF-GML index.Then,the nonlinear effects and regional heterogeneity of different types of environmental regulation on Green Total Factor Productivity are analyzed empirically.Then,using the mediating effect model,we test whether the mediating effect of technological innovation exists in the relationship between environmental regulation and Green Total Factor Productivity.Finally,according to the research conclusion,this paper puts forward the countermeasures to optimize the environmental regulation policy and improve the public participation system.The findings:(1)From 2005 to 2017,the intensity of formal environmental regulation in China showed a fluctuating upward trend,while the intensity of informal environmental regulation increased year by year.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,the intensity of formal environmental regulation is the highest in the western region,followed by the central region and the lowest in the eastern region.The intensity of informal environmental regulation is much higher in the eastern region than in the central and western regions.At the same time,China's Green Total Factor Productivity shows a trend of first decreasing and then increasing,and the main driving force for the improvement of Green Total Factor Productivity comes from technological progress.(2)As far as the relationship between formal environmental regulation and Green Total Factor Productivity is concerned,from the perspective of the whole country,the relationship between formal environmental regulation and Green Total Factor Productivity is U-shaped trend.From different regions,the relationship between formal environmental regulation and Green Total Factor Productivity in eastern,central and western regions is also characterized by a U-shaped curve.Specifically,at the end of the research period,the average level of the eastern and western regions has crossed the inflection point,showing the promotion of formal environmental regulation on Green Total Factor Productivity.The average level of the central region has not crossed the inflection point,which shows the inhibition of Green Total Factor Productivity.Therefore,the central region should strengthen the government's environmental regulation and make it cross the inflection point to promote regional green development.(3)As far as the relationship between informal environmental regulation and Green Total Factor Productivity is concerned,the relationship between informal environmental regulation and Green Total Factor Productivity presents a U-shaped curve,whether at the national level or in the eastern,central and western regions.At the end of the research period,the informal environmental regulations in all provinces have passed the inflection point,and the informal environmental regulations have effectively promoted the green development level of regional economy.(4)In the relationship between formal environmental regulation and Green Total Factor Productivity,there is no intermediary effect of technological innovation at the national level.From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,there is a complete intermediary effect in technological innovation in the eastern region,and formal environmental regulation is mainly detrimental to regional green development by inhibiting the level of technological innovation.There are some intermediary effects in technological innovation in the central region,and the proportion of intermediary effects is 19.9%.There is no intermediary effect in the western region.(5)The test results of the mediating effect of technological innovation on Green Total Factor Productivity show that there are some mediating effects of technological innovation in both the national level and the eastern,central and western regions,with the mediating effects being 7.5%,36.1%,6.2% and 4%,respectively.The effects of informal environmental regulation on Green Total Factor Productivity in central and western regions have little effect through technological innovation,mainly through direct action or other paths.Based on the above research conclusions,this paper puts forward the government should not only increase the intensity of environmental regulation,but also implement policies according to local conditions,and pay attention to the rationality and moderation of formal environmental regulation.At the social public level,relevant departments should attach importance to guiding the public's environmental protection concept and attaching importance to the public's informal environmental regulation power.In terms of the driving force of economic development,each region should increase investment in technological innovation and enhance the level of regional green technology,which is of great significance to achieve high-quality economic development.