School of Economics, Xiamen University, No. 422 Siming South Road, Xiamen 361005, China.
Economics School, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, No. 182 Nanhu Avenue, Wuhan 430073, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Nov 7;18(21):11681. doi: 10.3390/ijerph182111681.
Free trade zones (FTZ) are designated areas for promoting trade openness and investment facilitation. In China, FTZs are also regarded as "green areas" in which planning actions and institutional innovations are implemented, and there is a commitment to promoting urban green and healthy development. Given that green total factor productivity () is an important measure of a city's health and green performance, this study exploits the difference-in-differences method to explore the impact of pilot FTZs on urban in 280 cities in China for the period between 2005 and 2017. The results show that the green areas positively contributed to the growth of . Moreover, the outcome holds with robustness tests. Statistically, the positive effect emerged in cities during the first three years after introducing the initiative, with the effect disappearing afterward. It also had a strong positive impact in the central and western regions and in large and medium-sized cities, while the influence remained insignificant in the remaining areas in China. Furthermore, the paper also reveals that the promotion of foreign direct investment and industrial structure upgrading are the primary channels through which the positive relationship between pilot FTZs and is established.
自由贸易区（FTZ）是促进贸易开放和投资便利化的指定区域。在中国，FTZ 也被视为“绿色区域”，在这些区域中实施规划行动和制度创新，并致力于促进城市绿色和健康发展。鉴于绿色全要素生产率（）是衡量城市健康和绿色绩效的重要指标，本研究利用双重差分法，考察了 2005 年至 2017 年期间，中国 280 个城市中试点 FTZ 对城市 的影响。结果表明，绿色区域对 的增长有积极贡献。此外，该结果在稳健性检验中仍然成立。从统计学上看，这一积极影响出现在试点启动后的头三年，此后影响消失。在中西部地区和大中城市，其影响也很强劲，但在其他地区，影响仍然不显著。此外，本文还揭示了促进外国直接投资和产业结构升级是试点 FTZ 与 之间积极关系的主要渠道。
