Impact of Regional Green Development Strategy on Environmental Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China

Abstract

Chinese government policy officially identify the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) as one of regional green development strategies firstly in 2014. This strategy can be regarded as quasi-natural experiment, this paper aims to test its impact on regional environmental total factor productivity (TFP). First, slack-based measure model is used to calculate the environmental TFP from 2005 to 2017 at provincial level. Second, based on Chinese official statistics, differences-in-differences (DID) method is applied to construct an evaluation model of policy effect, combining with the kernel matching in propensity score matching (PSM) method. The results show that environmental TFP of YREB has significant spatial differences, with characteristic of high-east and low-west, its average level is 11.69 percentage points higher than the national average. YREB strategy promotes regional economic growth, but it does no effect on the regional environmental TFP yet. Modelling suggests that YREB strategy may play a role in the short term. From the significance of the control variables, infrastructure construction level is positively correlated with environmental TFP, while per capita GDP, financial development and energy consumption intensity have negative effect on environmental TFP. Based on this, policymakers should focus on green development, promoting industrial transformation, and enhancing environmental protection.

Spatial differences, distributional dynamics, and driving factors of green total factor productivity in China

“…Spatial heterogeneity is the spatial manifestation of natural and socioeconomic processes, and the spatial heterogeneity of the GTFP in China has also been influenced by socioeconomic and natural environmental factors. Based on previous studies, we probed the effects of the following factors on GTFP: level of economic development (eco), which is represented by the real per capita GDP (Guo et al, 2021); energy structure (ene), which is represented by the ratio of coal consumption to total energy consumption (Wang and Jia, 2022); the intensity of environmental regulation (ers), which is represented by the ratio of industrial pollution control investment to industrial value added (Wei et al, 2012); the level of openness (ope), which is represented by the trade volume to GDP ratio (Peng et al, 2021); level of industrial structure (ins), which is represented by the ratio of the added value of tertiary industries to the added value of secondary industries (Shu and Qi, 2020); the level of technological innovation (tec), which is represented by the number of patent applications received (Liu et al, 2022); the level of education (edu), which is represented by years of per capita education (Földvári and van Leeuwen, 2009); and the level of governmental intervention (gov), which is represented by the ratio of fiscal expenditure to GDP (Huang and Xie, 2008). A geodetector was used to identify the key drivers of GTFP development in China and the types of interactions between factors.…”

The Effect of Innovation Investment on Environmental Total Factor Productivity

“…K. Guo et al (2021) used the slack-based measurement model to calculate the environmental total factor productivity of China's provinces from 2005 to 2017. It was found that the infrastructure construction level was positively correlated with the environmental total factor productivity, while the per capita GDP, financial development, and energy consumption intensity had a negative correlation impact on the environmental total factor productivity [21]. Some scholars have studied the impact of innovation on total factor productivity.…”

How Effective Is the Green Development Policy of China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt? A Quantitative Evaluation Based on the PMC-Index Model

“…Since then, green development has been a priority on China's policy agenda [19]. Previous research on green development has focused on the concept of green development [20,21], green development efficiency [22][23][24], green development strategy [25][26][27], and green development level [28,29]. In recent years, scholars have deeply integrated green development with economic ecology and social ecology, and have conducted research from the aspects of green finance [30], green economy [31], green credit [32], and green energy [33].…”