School of Economics, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang 330013, China.
School of Economic Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 8;20(4):2980. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20042980.
The effectiveness of environmental regulations on green total factor productivity (GTFP) is controversial, and the mechanisms of the relationship between environmental regulation and GTFP are unknown. In this article, we take advantage of the Environmental Protection Interview (EPI) program-the harshest environmental monitoring program in Chinese history-to carry out a natural experiment to estimate the effect of environmental regulation on GTFP. Applying a time-varying difference-in-differences model based on city panel data from 2003 to 2018 in China, we determined that the EPI can lead to an average GTFP promotion of 35.6%, but the effect of the EPI is not consistent in the long term. A heterogeneity analysis documented that the effect of the EPI on GTFP is more significant in cities with low initial GTFP levels and low economic levels. A mechanism analysis showed that the EPI increases GTFP, basically, through technical creativity and industrial structure upgrading.
环境规制对绿色全要素生产率（GTFP）的有效性存在争议，环境规制与 GTFP 之间关系的作用机制尚不清楚。本文利用中国历史上最严格的环境监测计划——环境保护访谈（EPI）计划——进行了一项自然实验，以估计环境规制对 GTFP 的影响。我们基于中国 2003 年至 2018 年的城市面板数据，采用时变双重差分模型，结果表明 EPI 平均可使 GTFP 提高 35.6%，但 EPI 的长期效果并不一致。异质性分析表明，EPI 对 GTFP 的影响在初始 GTFP 水平较低和经济水平较低的城市更为显著。机制分析表明，EPI 主要通过技术创新和产业结构升级来提高 GTFP。
