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

Kailu Guo, Shixiang Li, Zhanqi Wang, Jianru Shi, Jun Bai and Jinhua Cheng
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Kailu Guo: School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Shixiang Li: School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Zhanqi Wang: School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Jianru Shi: School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Jun Bai: School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Jinhua Cheng: Mineral Resources Strategy and Policy Research Center, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 5, 1-19

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.

Keywords: green development; environmental total factor productivity; policy effect; difference-in-differences; propensity score matching; Yangtze River Economic Belt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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