Economic Growth and Pollution Emission in China: Structural Path Analysis

Abstract

Abstract:The relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution has long been a controversial topic. However, simply the detection of the existence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is not enough to understand how economic growth induced environmental pollution. This study investigated the path and mechanism of the effect of economic growth on the emission of two types of environmental pollutants, that is, industrial smoke and dust and sulfur dioxide, by using a structural equation model and a sample of 283 prefecture-level cities in China in 2005 and 2015. The research results show that economic growth exerted both direct and indirect effects on the emission of the two environmental pollutants. In addition to a direct impact through the economic scale effect, economic growth also indirectly impacted the two environmental pollutants emissions through three mediators, that is, industrial structure, technological innovations and environmental regulations. For different pollutants, the effect paths of economic growth on their emission showed both similarities and differences. First, with regards to industrial smoke and dust emissions and sulfur dioxide emissions, the effects of economic growth on the amount of these two emissions through environmental regulations and the industrial structure were negative inhibitory effects and positive promoting effects, respectively. This means that in prefectural-level cities in China, environmental regulation factors have produced some effects in reducing the emissions of these two pollutants while the industrial structure (level of industrialization) can increase the emissions of these two pollutants. However, the effect strength of these two paths shows a gradual weakening. Second, these two paths differ in effect strength and its changes. The positive promoting effects of the industrial structure on pollutant emission are significantly higher than the inhibitory effects of environmental regulation. In addition, our study also found that the direct impact path of economic growth on environmental pollution also passed significance testing, particularly in 2015. This shows that other reasons affect pollutant emission, such as system factors, spatial migration of industries and so forth.

Environmental Accounting of Financial Development and Foreign Investment: Spatial Analyses of East Asia

“…Conversely, in developing countries, where environmental regulations are not as strict, it is cheaper to set up a pollutant factory while the labor is also cheap. It leads factories and industries to outsource work and move to these developing nations since they are cheaper with lower environmental standards [9]. Many macro and microeconomic factors are associated with emissions in a country.…”

“…While the study has landed on robust conclusions, it needs further evidence using panel data that can support this inference. Yang et al [9] mentioned that EKC is not a standalone theory to define how well economic growth and emissions are connected. Therefore, they investigated the existence of EKC in China and mentioned that while the relation is directly affected by scale and other effects, aspects like technological advancement, environmental regulation, and industrial structure have an indirect influence on the implication of EKC.…”

Could the Construction of Sustainable Development Pilot Zones Improve the Urban Environment Efficiency in China?

“…is contains three aspects of air pollution treatment, industrial solid waste treatment, and environmental management in environmental treatment and is more comprehensive than environmental treatment input [48] (because the statistical data of wastewater treatment in China City Statistical Yearbook before and after 2010 are inconsistent, the reduction rate of industrial wastewater discharge is removed). Table 2, model I is based on the whole 187 cities, regardless of the difference between sustainable and nonsustainable ones.…”

Unleashing the Indirect Influence of FDI in Environmental Degradation via Financial Development and Economic Growth. New Evidence from Asian Countries

“…A number of policies and strategies have been formulated to enhance the environmental quality [55][56][57]. Despite active engagement and programs, many countries, especially from Asia, have failed to gain satisfactory environmental performance [31,58] due to a de ciency of resources and support [25,59]. In this case, out of several indicators, FDI has been considered a signi cant predictor of ED [3,8,57].…”