是什么导致了“污染天堂”:贸易还是FDI?——来自中国省级面板数据的证据

What Cause China to Become a Pollution Haven:Evidence from Chinese Provincial Panel Data

本文利用1999-2008年中国省级面板数据,应用新近发展的面板向量自回归模型,研究FDI、贸易和环境规制之间的互动关系。结果发现,"污染天堂"假说在中国基本成立,而导致中国环境压力增大的最主要因素,并非是外商直接投资,而是自由贸易。这个结论有力地支持了"西方污染中国"的命题。进一步分析还发现,环境规制与对外贸易存在非对称的互动关系:环境规制对对外贸易存在显著负面影响,证实了"污染天堂"效应的存在;但反过来,对外贸易在一定程度上有利于环境治理努力的增强。最后本文选择多种环境规制指标和划分东、中、西部子样本的方法进行稳健性分析,证实了结论的可靠性。

This paper empirically examines the relationships among FDI,foreign trade and environmental regulation with a new method of panel data vector autoregression based on provincial panel data in China from 1999 to 2008.The research discovers that China has been a ＂pollution haven＂;the main factor is not FDI but foreign trade that gives great pressure to the environment in China.There is an asymmetric and interactive relationship between environmental regulation and foreign trade.Environmental regulation has a negative effect on foreign trade,which proves ＂pollution haven＂ effect in China;in turn,foreign trade is good for strengthening environmental governance to some extent.To improve the robustness of the conclusion,this paper also uses several other variables of environmental regulation,and divides the data into three parts respectively in East,Middle and West regions.