Industrial Undertaking and Air Quality in Inland:Evidence from National Demonstration of Industrial Undertaking Transfer
Industrial transfer is an effective way to optimize the spatial distribution of productivity and form a reasonable industrial division of the labor system,and it is imperative to promoting the adjustment of industrial structure and accelerating the transformation of economic development mode.China is a vast region with obvious industrial gradients and regional differences.The developed coastal areas,represented by the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta,are actively implementing the strategy of"breaking free from cages and replacing birds"while climbing upstream in the global value chain and transferring industries with high pollution,high energy consumption,and high input to develop strategic emerging industries and high-end service industries.To expand employment and develop the economy,inland areas have also taken the initiative to take over industries transferred from developed areas.The gradient transfer of industry is not only the general law of high-quality economic development but also the internal logic of the two-way circular development of the economy through the construction of a domestic value chain.The Chinese-style industrial undertaking is not the only means to develop the economy and adjust the industrial structure.More importantly,strengthening resource conservation and environmental protection based on resource carrying capacity and ecological environmental capacity is an essential strategy to promote the coordination between economic development,resources,and the environment.When inland areas undertake industrial development of their local economy,will it have a negative impact on the local environment?In response to the above issue,we take the construction of national industrial transfer demonstration zones as a quasi-natural experiment and conduct a comprehensive and accurate assessment of the impact of China's industrial undertaking on air quality to demonstrate that the green development concept of"green mountains and clear waters are as valuable as gold and silver."We use the policy of national demonstration zones for undertaking industrial transfer as a quasi-natural experiment and employ the data of 2545 county-level cities in China from 2000 to 2020 to quantify the impact of the establishment of national demonstration zones for undertaking industrial transfer on local air quality.The following conclusions are drawn.First,after the establishment of the national demonstration zones to undertake industrial transfer,the local PM2.5 index dropped by 2.53％.Second,the detailed study found that seven of the ten national demonstration zones to undertake industrial transfer can significantly improve local air quality,which indicates that China's industrial undertaking has abandoned the extensive model of"development before management"and embarked on a path of"environmental protection".Third,the improvement effect of the national industrial transfer demonstration zones on the environment has a significant spatial spillover effect within a range of 160km.Moreover,the spatial spillover effect of national industrial transfer demonstration zones decreases with an increase in distance.This conclusion reveals that the national industrial transfer demonstration zone not only not has the"beggar-thy-neighbor"pollution transfer effect but also drives the surrounding areas to improve environmental quality.Fourth,we also conducted an in-depth analysis of the national industrial transfer demonstration zone to improve the air quality mechanism.On the one hand,we found that establishing national demonstration zones to undertake industrial transfer significantly improves local innovation capacity,and there is no difference in the promotion effect of different types of patents.Further,establishing a national demonstration zone to undertake industrial transfer can simultaneously promote the number of patent authorizations for three types of patents-invention patents,utility model patents,and design patents.On the other hand,establishing national demonstration zones to undertake industrial transfer accelerates the entry and exit of enterprises.Through environmental policies,clean enterprises are induced to enter the market;polluting enterprises are forced to leave the market;and the environmental performance of incumbent enterprises improves.We used wind speed monitoring data from 179 meteorological stations in China to construct wind speed variables.The weather station records the maximum,minimum,average of the maximum wind speed,and average two-minute wind speed.Based on the latitude and longitude data of each weather station,we matched the nearest distance,used Geohash to generate a 12-digit geographic hash code for clustering,and matched weather stations to each county-level city according to geographical location.If there is no weather station in the cluster of county-level cities,the nearest distance of the stations in the cluster of surrounding areas is calculated according to the latitude and longitude to match.Subsequently,we introduce the interaction term between the virtual variable and the wind speed variable of the national industrial transfer demonstration area to investigate the interference of wind speed on the empirical results.A variety of robustness tests can effectively ensure the reliability of the empirical results.This study contributes to a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of China's industrial transfer characteristics,clarifies the relationship between industrial inheritance and the environment,and provides suggestions for building a low-carbon and green industrial system in inland areas.
Industrial TransferAir QualityNational Demonstration Zone for Undertaking Industrial TransferPM2.5
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