How to improve the quality of the ecological environment while maintaining sustained economic growth remains an urgent and practical issue in China today. Based on the panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2021 and treating the construction of ecological civilization pilot demonstration zones as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper uses the Difference-in-Differences (DID) method to explore the impact and mechanisms of ecological civilization pilot demonstration zone construction on the quality of the ecological environment. The study found that the construction of ecological civilization pilot demonstration zones has a significant positive effect on the improvement of the ecological environment quality. The impact shows an initial increase followed by a slight decline over time, and it is more pronounced in the western region, resource-based cities, and cities with a high level industrial development. Further analysis revealed that the construction of ecological civilization pilot demonstration zones can improve the quality of the ecological environment through three channels: enhancing government environmental governance, promoting the green transformation of industrial enterprises, and increasing public environmental awareness. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the promotion of ecological civilization pilot demonstration zones construction, select differentiated paths for ecological civilization construction according to local conditions, actively explore multidimensional approaches to ecological civilization construction, and further enhance the overall ecological environment quality of the whole society.
关键词
生态文明先行示范区/生态环境质量/政府环境治理/工业企业绿色转型/公众环境关注度
Key words
ecological civilization pilot demonstration zone/ecological environment quality/government environmental governance/green transformation of industrial enterprises/public concern on environment
维普
万方数据