Key Research Institute of Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development & Collaborative Innovation Center on Yellow River Civilization of Henan Province, Henan University, Kaifeng 450001, China.
College of Environment and Planning, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Feb 17;17(4):1279. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17041279.
Some scholars have already proved the important role of agglomeration in studying how environmental regulation (ER) affects the location of polluting firms. However, further research is needed on both the mechanism and the empirical evidence. This paper reports the construction of a location database of new chemical plants in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), where a fixed-effects panel threshold regression model was used to explore the agglomeration threshold of effective ER. We found a single agglomeration threshold for the whole YREB region that represented the turning point of ER from excluding to attracting new chemical enterprises. Additionally, there were two agglomeration thresholds in the lower reaches. If agglomeration reached the lower threshold, the effect of ER changed from repulsion to nonsignificant attraction. Once above the upper threshold, the attraction effect became large and significant. The results for this region were consistent with the Porter hypothesis. Furthermore, there was a single agglomeration threshold in the middle reaches. When agglomeration level exceeded the threshold, the repellant effect of ER was no longer significant. In the upper reaches, we found no valid threshold and ER always exhibited a small and nonsignificant exclusion effect. The pollution haven hypothesis was more explanatory in the middle and upper reaches. In the end, some suggestions are provided to support the government to formulate differentiated environmental policies.
一些学者已经证明了集聚在研究环境规制（ER）如何影响污染企业选址方面的重要作用。然而，在机制和经验证据方面还需要进一步的研究。本文报告了中国长江经济带（YREB）新建化工厂位置数据库的构建，利用固定效应面板门限回归模型探讨了有效 ER 的集聚门槛。我们发现整个 YREB 地区存在单一的集聚门槛，代表了 ER 从排斥到吸引新化工企业的转折点。此外，下游地区还有两个集聚门槛。如果集聚达到较低的门槛，ER 的作用将从排斥变为不显著的吸引。一旦超过上限门槛，吸引力效应就会变得大且显著。该区域的结果与波特假说一致。此外，中游地区也存在单一的集聚门槛。当集聚水平超过门槛时，ER 的排斥效应不再显著。在上游地区，我们没有发现有效的门槛，ER 始终表现出较小且不显著的排斥效应。污染避难所假说在中游和上游地区更具解释力。最后，本文提供了一些建议，以支持政府制定差异化的环境政策。
