The Impact Of Industrial Agglomeration On The International Competitiveness Of China’s Manufacturing Industry

The added value of China’s manufacturing industry has ranked first in the world for 12 consecutive years.China is well-deserved as the biggest manufacturing country and is gradually becoming a manufacturing powerhouse.To build a manufacturing powerhouse is to enhance the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.In recent years,the world environmental situation has been severe,and various countries have adopted different levels of regulatory measures to deal with environmental problems.The traditional extensive development mode of high energy consumption,high pollution and high emission in China’s manufacturing industry can no longer meet the requirements.The2015 "Government Work Report" first proposed the implementation of "Made in China 2025",insisting on innovation-driven,intelligent transformation,strengthening foundation,and green development,further strengthening environmental regulations,and more diversified regulatory means.The impact of environmental regulation not only increases the production cost of enterprises,but also promotes clean technology innovation.The overall effect on the development of the industry is uncertain.In the process of development,the manufacturing industry tends to form agglomeration due to the pursuit of positive externalities.Facts have proved that industries with a high degree of agglomeration in various countries usually show strong international competitiveness.Although the existing literature shows that the external economies of scale and knowledge and technology spillovers brought about by industrial agglomeration help to improve the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry,it also brings resource consumption and environmental damage,which directly affects society and society.multiple aspects of the economy.This negative externality generated by industrial agglomeration may have an adverse impact on the sustainable development of the industry.In response to the above questions,this article first examines the mechanism of the impact of industrial aggregation on international competition in production from four perspectives: the acquisition of external economies of scale,the development of technology sharing and innovation,increase of market competition and increase of environmental protection,and analyze in more detail the regulatory role of environmental regulations in it.Then,the environmental regulation level,industrial agglomeration level,and international competitiveness level of China’s manufacturing industry from 2004 to 2019 were calculated and analyzed.The environmental regulation level was measured by the per capita operating cost of pollution control facilities,and the industry-level agglomeration level was measured by Herfindahl.For index measurement,the agglomeration level at the regional level is measured by the location entropy index,and the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry is measured by the revealed competitive advantage index and the revealed comparative advantage index.Further,construct the benchmark model of industrial agglomeration affecting international competitiveness to test the impact of manufacturing industry agglomeration on its international competitiveness.Taking environmental regulation as the moderating variable and threshold variable,the moderating effect model and threshold effect model are respectively constructed to test the moderating effect of environmental regulation.Finally,three methods of replacing the explained variable,replacing the core explanatory variable,and replacing the control variable are used to test the robustness.The research results show that: First,from the perspective of the development status of China’s manufacturing industry,the overall environmental regulation level,industrial agglomeration level,and international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry show a fluctuating upward trend.Among them,the environmental regulation level of cleaner production industries is lower than that of pollution-intensive industries and the overall manufacturing industry;although the level of industrial clusters in the processing and manufacturing industry continues to improve,the level of agglomeration is still low,and the level of agglomeration in cleaner production industries is high In terms of pollution-intensive industries;13 of the25 sub-sectors of the manufacturing industry have international competitiveness above the international level,the international competitiveness of pollution-intensive industries has gradually declined,and the international competitiveness of cleaner production industries has gradually increased.Second,the impact of manufacturing industry agglomeration on its level of international competitiveness is positive and significant.Environmental regulation plays a positive role in regulating the relationship between the two,and when the level of environmental regulation is greater than 0.4611,it will further strengthen the role of industrial agglomeration in promoting international competitiveness.Third,there is industry heterogeneity in the role of environmental regulation in regulating the relationship between industrial agglomeration and international competitiveness of industries.For cleaner production industries,their own pollution levels are low,and environmental regulation has not shown a regulatory role.For pollution-intensive industries,the positive regulatory effect of environmental regulation is particularly obvious.Fourth,among the control variables,levels of physical capital,human capital,foreign direct investment,and industry competition has a positive effect on the international competitiveness of the industry.And improving the level of human capital will facilitate the improvement of the international competitiveness of the cleaner manufacturing industry,improving the degree of industry competition is not conducive to the improvement of the international competitiveness of pollution intensive industries.The following proposals have been made based on the research results of this paper and the current situation: first,formulate scientific industrial development plans to reasonably guide industrial agglomeration;second,according to industry characteristics,scientifically formulate environmental regulation policies to achieve environmental protection and economic Benefit and win-win;third,actively create an innovation environment and effectively exert the technological innovation effect of industrial agglomeration.