首页|Do Free Trade Zones Improve Air Quality?

Do Free Trade Zones Improve Air Quality?

扫码查看
原文链接
  • NETL
  • NSTL
  • 维普
  • 万方数据
As a new window of opening up to the outside world in the new era,the establishment of Free Trade Zones(FTZs)in China is an important national strategy for promoting high-quality economic development wherein the prevention and control of pollution is an important hurdle to be surmounted throughout the process.Based on data taken from model cities for environmental protection in China from 2008 to 2017,given the effect of policy spillover,this study considers the establishment of FTZs to be a"quasi-natural experiment."It uses the general analysis paradigm of spatial difference-in-difference(DID)to systematically examine the impact of FTZs on air pollution as well as to conduct an in-depth analysis of their spatial heterogeneity and mechanism of action.The study shows that the establishment of FTZs significantly reduces the concentration of air pollutants in cities.If the spatial DID method is adopted to measure the policy spillover effect of the establishment of free trade zones,urban air pollutants declines by 12％to 17％,while the estimated result using the traditional DID method is only 7％.The establishment of FTZs significantly alleviates air pollution in neighboring non-pilot cities as well.Based on the range of the spillover effect from the center of the FTZ,it is found that the average spatial spillover effect presents as an inverted"U"curve as the research radius increases,with an optimal policy spillover effect radius of about 200km,while the policy spillover effect between pilot cities remains poor.The establishment of an FTZ not only improves the local atmospheric environment by promoting industrial structure optimization and green technology innovation in pilot cities but also generates a spillover effect on neighboring non-pilot cities through the same mechanism,thus contributing to improving the atmospheric environment in those non-pilot cities.These findings remain valid following a series of robustness tests such as the spatial parallel trend test and the placebo test.This study offers an answer to the key question of whether free trade zone policy can truly promote high-quality economic development in the new era.It provides useful policy insights for further expanding opening up,winning the battle for the prevention and control of pollution,and promoting the high-quality development of China's economy.

establishment of Free Trade Zones(FTZs)air pollution prevention and controlhigh-quality economic developmentspatial difference-in-difference(DID)methodpolicy spilloverpolicy evaluation

HU Zongyi、ZHOU Jikun、LI Yi

展开 >

College of Finance and Statistics,Hunan University,Changsha 410006,China

key project of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research sponsored by the Ministry of EducationNational Natural Science Foundation of China

19 JZD02471774053

2023

10.3868/s060-016-023-0009-1

当代中国经济转型研究(英文版)

当代中国经济转型研究(英文版)

ISSN：
年,卷(期)：2023.6(2)
  • 18