中国城市化进程对环境质量的影响--基于中国地级城市数据的实证检验

Effect of China's Urbanization Process on Quality of Environment——An Empirical Study of Prefecture-level Cities of China

本文采用Driscoll和Kraay(1998)发展的考虑到横截面依赖特征的面板数据模型,利用中国1997—2001年间城市级别的面板数据,利用不同指标,对中国城市化进程和环境质量的关系进行检验。理论上城市化进程对环境质量的影响存在两种不同的观点,城市化改善环境质量和城市化导致环境质量下降,前者基于人类活动的直接影响,后者着眼于环境管制的间接作用。本文检验发现,以城镇人口占总人口比重为指标的城市化定义对环境质量具有正效应,而以建成区面积为指标的中国城市化进程的加快会对环境质量具有显著的负面影响。同时,城市的人口密度和制造业比重等社会经济变量也对环境质量具有负的影响。这一发现对于我国城市化战略进程中环境政策的制定具有重要启迪。

This paper attempts to apply the panel data model of cross-section dependence developed by Driseoll and Kraay （1998） to test the correlation between urbanization process and quality of environment by referring to the panel data of cities in the period of 1997 to 2001 and using different indications of urbanization. Theoretically speaking, there exist two different views con- cerning the effect of urbanization on environmental quality： raising or deteriorating the quality of environment. The former refers to the direct effect of human activities, the latter refers to the in- direct consequences of environment regulation. The paper finds out that definition of urbanization based on the ratio of non-agricultural population in the city against the population of the whole city shows positive effect on the quality of the environment. However, if defined by the size of the city avea , acceleration of urbanization process may result in obvious negative effect of the environmental quality. Meanwhile, economic variables like population density and proportion of manufacture industry also pose negative effect on the environmental quality. Findings of this study offers important implications for policy-making concerning urbanization process in China.