The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Manufacturing FDI In China’s Pearl River Delta Region

After decades of in-depth reform and opening up in all aspects,the overall level of China’s economic development is obvious to all.At the same time,its coverage is constantly extending.However,such development is largely at the cost of destroying the living environment,which includes the negative effects caused by the massive inflow of foreign direct investment(FDI).Some foreign investors use China as a "pollution haven" for them to move polluting industries.In order to promote the transformation of China’s economic development mode from high-speed development to high-quality development,the national level has begun to implement and promulgate environmental protection related policies to control FDI inflow,and the promulgation and implementation of environmental regulation policies is one of the powerful measures.The "low-carbon pilot" policy is one of them.Manufacturing industry is a traditional industry in China,and in China’s current rapid economic development process,has important significance.China’s Pearl River Delta is a very important region for economic development and international trade development.It has irreplaceable regional advantages and huge consumption potential.It is also a pilot demonstration area for many policy experiments.To test the low carbon pilot policy impact on China’s pearl river delta manufacturing fdi,this article has carried on the empirical analysis.Based on previous theories and empirical studies,this paper takes the panel data of 9 cities in the Pearl River Delta of China from 2000 to 2020 as the research object,takes the "low-carbon pilot" as a quasi-natural experiment,and adopts the differentially differential model to study the effect of "lowcarbon pilot" on FDI in the Pearl River Delta of China.The results show that:(1)The implementation of pilot low-carbon policies is not an obstacle to FDI in the Pearl River Delta.The implementation of pilot low-carbon policies in China has a positive promoting effect on FDI inflow in the Pearl River Delta.(2)Due to different levels of cities,low-carbon pilot policies also have different impacts on FDI in cities of different levels.It has little effect on the first-tier cities in the Pearl River Delta,but has obvious promoting effect on non-first-tier cities.Therefore,in the important stage of China’s economic transformation and development,local governments can make full use of existing policy means to actively expand the scope of application of lowcarbon pilot projects,so as to strike a balance between environmental protection and FDI introduction.However,at the same time,the government should avoid blindly implementing environmental policies and "one-size-fitsall" for all regions.Instead,according to the development status and regional characteristics of each city,the government should implement low-carbon pilot policies in stages,set carbon intensity reduction targets suitable for local development for different regions,and ultimately attract foreign direct investment.