Impact of logistics agglomeration on environmental quality in China: aggravating pollution effect or emission reduction effect?

Whether logistics agglomeration and pollution reduction can form a perfect combination in space is one of the important breakthroughs for the successful green transformation of the logistics industry in the future. This paper attempts to clarify the nonlinear change law of logistics agglomeration evolution on environmental quality in China and further clarify the interpretation of informatization and legalization factors on macro-regulatory functions. Based on the panel data of 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China from 2010 to 2020, the empirical verification is carried out by means of two-way fixed effects, quantile regression, instrumental variables, and spatial econometrics. The research finds that (1) there is an inverted U-shaped change trend between logistics agglomeration and environmental quality and the low-level logistics agglomeration period has a blocking effect on pollution emission reduction. However, from the starting point of the sample interval, representative regions such as Beijing and Shanghai gradually break through the bottleneck of logistics agglomeration in the form of a pyramid, which has an incentive effect on pollution emission reduction. The above conclusions are supported by robustness tests in six ways, including eliminating extreme data disturbance, eliminating the impact of the COVID-19, controlling the impact of other factors, pollutant sensitivity testing, avoiding the interference of pollution prevention and control, and correcting the endogenous bias of the model. (2) Further analysis of superimposed spatial effects and regulatory effects shows that regional spillover pollution has spatial dependence in both geographical and economic distribution. The effect of logistics agglomeration also produces an inverted U-shaped spatial spillover effect on the environmental quality of adjacent areas. Both informatization and legalization factors help alleviate the pollution increasing effect in the low-level logistics agglomeration stage. Under the regulatory effect of informatization, the arrival of the critical point for logistics agglomeration and emission reduction will be relatively delayed. Under the regulatory effect of legalization, the arrival of the critical point for logistics agglomeration and emission reduction will be relatively accelerated. (3) There is significant regional heterogeneity in the environmental effects of logistics agglomeration. Each region needs to "suit the remedy to the case" in combination with its own situation to break through the threshold of pollution reduction as soon as possible.