| In the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the General Secretary Xi Jinping once again stressed that we should promote the construction of a beautiful China,adhere to the integrated protection and systematic governance of mountains,rivers,forests,fields,lakes,grass and sand,coordinate industrial restructuring,pollution control,ecological protection,and response to climate change,coordinate the promotion of carbon reduction,pollution reduction,green expansion,and growth,and promote ecological priority,conservation and intensive,green and low-carbon development.The upgrading of industrial structure is the key path to coordinate the sustainable economic development and ecological protection.However,ecological issues have long restricted the upgrading of China’s industrial structure.Therefore,the government has always maintained a high degree of attention to ecological construction.Over the years,a series of environmental regulation policies have been issued andcontinuously optimized to promote the transformation and development of local industries and achieve the upgrading of industrial structure.In this process,human capital is an important factor to play the technical effect under environmental regulation.In recent years,various regions have also been continuously innovating talent policies to attract more human capital to form a agglomeration effect to serve local industrial development.Therefore,adjusting the intensity of environmental regulation,attracting the concentration of human capital,and promoting the upgrading of industrial structure have strong theoretical value and practical significance.Based on the above background,this paper uses the methods of literature research,inductive comparison and empirical analysis to discuss the three themes of environmental regulation,human capital agglomeration and industrial structure upgrading within the same framework,and strives to accurately grasp the internal impact mechanism among the three.This paper first reviews the research results of scholars at home and abroad,summarizes the relevant theories on this basis,and introduces the basic status quo of China’s current environmental regulation policy evolution and governance effects,human capital measurement and proportion,and the overall upgrading of industrial structure.Then,based on the data of 262 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to2019,a corresponding measurement model was established to empirically analyze the mechanism of environmental regulation and human capital agglomeration on the upgrading of industrial structure,further highlighting the intermediary effect of human capital agglomeration and the threshold effect of environmental regulation.The results show that: first,environmental regulation and human capital agglomeration can significantly promote the upgrading of local industrial structure at this stage,and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness and endogenous tests.Secondly,the impact of environmental regulation and human capital agglomeration on the upgrading of industrial structure is different in cities in different regions of China and cities with different resource endowments.In terms of regional heterogeneity,whether in eastern,central or western cities,environmental regulation has significantly promoted the upgrading of urban industrial structure,and human capital agglomeration has also promoted the upgrading effect of industrial structure in eastern,central and western cities,but only eastern cities have passed the significance test;In terms of the heterogeneity of resource endowments,environmental regulation plays a significant role in promoting the industrial structure of resource-based and nonresource-based cities,and the coefficient of resource-based cities is higher than that of non-resource-based cities.The effect of human capital agglomeration on the upgrading of industrial structure of resource-based cities is significantly positive,and the impact on the upgrading of industrial structure of non-resource-based cities is positive,but it has not passed the significance test.Thirdly,there is an intermediary effect between environmental regulation,human capital agglomeration and industrial structure upgrading,that is,there is a transmission mechanism of environmental regulation,human capital agglomeration and industrial structure upgrading.Further taking environmental regulation as the threshold variable,environmental regulation has a double threshold effect on the industrial structure upgrading effect of human capital agglomeration.Finally,according to the research conclusions,the following policy recommendations are put forward: improve the environmental regulation system,increase investment in pollution control,develop green and low-carbon industries,and promote the upgrading of industrial structure;Improve the talent security system,allocate human capital reasonably,and continue to improve the efficiency of human capital agglomeration;Formulate differentiated and dynamic environmental regulation policies to give full play to the maximum promotion effect of human capital agglomeration on industrial structure upgrading under environmental regulation within a reasonable range. |
