Retesting The Environmental Kuznets Curve Of Global Value Chain Embedment

There may be a connection between the functional specialization of global value chains and the environmental Kuznets curve.Because a country’s functional specialization represents its division of labor in the global value chains,developed countries tend to develop environment-friendly,low-pollution and capital-intensive industries.while developing countries and backward economies tend to produce highly polluting and resource-intensive products,This makes the industrial division of the global value chains and the distribution of polluting industries on the global value chains have a close relationship.With the deepening of global industrial division,developed countries and developing countries are polarized in environmental quality,resulting in the deterioration of global environmental problems.Therefore,it is very important to explore the relationship between global industrial division of labor and environmental Kuznets curve,but the academia has not reached a clear conclusion on this issue.This thesis describes the smile curve of the global textile industry to obtain the functional specialization of the industry in the global value chain,and studies the impact of the functional specialization of the global value chain on the environmental Kuznets curve(EKC),that is,the impact of the functional specialization of the global value chain on the turning point of the environmental Kuznets curve.First of all,the input-output method is used to measure the distance between the value-added creators in the textile industry and each consumer.The distance is the abscissa of the smile curve image,and is the average total number of stages in which the textile industry reaches all final demand users through the way of forward industry connection.Secondly,based on the input-output table,the input-output method is used again to calculate the added value obtained by the textile industry in producing one dollar output,which is taken as the ordinate of the smile curve.Based on the calculated horizontal and vertical coordinates,the smile curve of the global textile industry can be described.Thirdly,in order to obtain the functional specialization of global value chain,the slope of smile curve image is obtained by derivation,and the slope represents the functional specialization of global value chain,that is,the division of labor of global textile industry in global value chain.Finally,based on the availability of data,this thesis uses a fixed effects model to explore the impact of functional specialization of the global textile industry in GVCS on environmental pollution based on panel data from 58 countries from 2007 to 2018.It is concluded that the functional specialization of GVCS can affect the turning point of the environmental Kuznets curve,and the results are robust to the changes of potential outliers,median regression estimation methods and models,so it has some reliability.The main findings include :(1)There is indeed an inextricable link between a country’s position on the global value chain and per capita carbon dioxide emissions.With the increase of functional specialization,the position of the country in the global value chain is closer to the two ends that can generate high value-added,and the environment gradually improves.The results of this thesis support the environmental Kuznets curve(EKC)hypothesis of carbon dioxide emission.(2)The change of location characteristics on the smile curve will influence the "inflection point" of the environmental Kuznetz curve.If other variables remain unchanged,if the location characteristics of the smile curve increase by one unit,the income corresponding to the "inflection point" will decrease by 35,946.67 USD on average(or the average inflection point shifted 35,946.67 units to the left).The research results of this thesis provide empirical basis for the formulation of environmental policy in China and have certain application value.Industries with low added value need more energy consumption and will produce more carbon dioxide,while industrial upgrading has a positive role in promoting environmental quality.