摘要
本文使用2004—2013年中国286个地级及以上城市PM2.5浓度这一独特的雾霾数据,采用劳动生产率来度量经济发展质量,系统考察了雾霾污染对中国经济发展质量的影响及其传导机制,并创新性地选取能够控制雾霾污染空间溢出效应的空气流动系数以及能够全面度量地方政府环境政策和治理力度的政府环境治理指标作为减缓雾霾污染变量内生性的两个工具变量,在两阶段最小二乘的统一框架内估计了政府环境治理的减霾效果和对中国经济发展质量的影响。研究发现:雾霾污染显著降低了中国经济发展质量;城市化与人力资本是雾霾污染影响中国经济发展质量的两个重要传导渠道;政府环境治理能够有效降低雾霾污染从而促进经济发展质量的提升;雾霾污染对大中城市经济发展质量的负面影响显著高于小城市,且随时间推移雾霾污染的负面效应越来越显著。本文的政策启示是,经济发展质量的提高是经济发展方式转变的前提,政府治霾有助于提升大气环境和经济发展质量,助推中国经济的高质量发展。
Along with its high-speed economic growth,China faces the problem of dramatic environmental deterioration.In particular,China s severe air pollution,characterized by an unprecedentedly high level of PM2.5 concentrations,has recently drawn increasing attention both at home and abroad.Air pollution regulations reduce the output level in the short term;however,during an era in which China s economy is shifting from a stage of high growth to high-quality development,the influence of air pollution regulations on economic development quality is a greater concern.Using the unique PM2.5 concentration data at China s prefectural level over the period 2004-2013 and proxying economic development quality by labor productivity,this paper investigates how air pollution influences economic development quality and its influential channels and,in particular,how government regulations influence economic development quality by influencing air pollution abatement.Furthermore,to alleviate the potential problem of endogeneity,this paper chooses two variables,the air ventilation coefficient and government environmental regulations,as the instrumental variables(IV)for PM2.5 concentrations,which in turn allows us to estimate the influence of government regulations on air pollution and their subsequent influence on economic development quality in a unified econometric framework of two-stage OLS(2LS).The air ventilation coefficient is measured by the product of wind speed and atmospheric boundary layer height.In addition to serving as the IV of PM2.5 concentrations due to its high exogeneity and relevance,it controls the unique spatial spillover effects of the air pollution variable,which is conducive to the identification of the effects of the key variable of government regulations on air pollution in the first stage of 2SLS in this study.Additionally,the variable of government regulations is measured by the amount or proportion of environmental vocabulary in government work reports,which allows us to comprehensively measure the strength of environmental regulations promulgated by local government.The results indicate that,on average,air pollution significantly lowers China s economic development quality;urbanization and human capital are important channels through which air pollution influences China s economic development quality;the negative impacts of air pollution on economic development quality are significantly higher in larger cities and become increasingly significant over time;and government regulations can effectively reduce air pollution,thereby increasing the quality of economic development in China.The results imply that the extensive growth model has caused severe air pollution and that air pollution has damaged economic development quality in China.Such a vicious circle can be solved only by passing and enforcing reasonable and effective government environmental regulations.In such a case,the input factors are able to continuously flow from the sectors of high energy consumption and pollution emission with low efficiency to those with high efficiency.The total factor efficiency and productivity then gradually increase,finally leading to the optimization of the economic structure and achieving the win-win target of high-quality environmental and economic development.This outcome is what supply-side structural reform aims to achieve in dealing with the pair of permanent relationships between environmental protection and economic development.This paper contributes to the literature in the following three ways.First,instead of investigating how economic development affects the natural environment,as in most current research,this paper concentrates on the effects of environmental deterioration on economic development.Second,PM2.5 concentration data covering China s 286 prefectures over the period 2004-2013 are constructed.As far as we know,this is the largest historical PM2.5 concentration dataset from China used in economics.Finally,by means of the 2SLS strategy,this study alleviates the potential endogeneity problem and qualifies the effects of government environmental regulations on air pollution and their additional impact on economic development quality in a unified framework.
作者
陈诗一
陈登科
CHEN Shiyi;CHEN Dengke(School of Economics,Fudan University)
出处
《经济研究》
CSSCI
北大核心
2018年第2期20-34,共15页
Economic Research Journal
基金
国家社会科学基金重大项目"雾霾治理与经济发展方式转变机制研究"(14ZDB144)的阶段性成果
教育部"长江学者"奖励计划
国家杰出青年科学基金
上海市领军人才计划的资助
关键词
雾霾污染
经济发展质量
政府治理
地级市PM2.5浓度
Air Pollution
Economic Development Quality
Government Regulations
Prefectural Level PM2.5 Concentrations
