环境质量与中国城市发展沉浮:人力资本视角的解释

Environmental Quality and Chinese Urban Development:An Interpretation from the Perspective of Human Capital

环境质量日益成为影响中国城市品质和高质量发展的重要因素。本文采用中国人口普查、夜间灯光和基于卫星反演的大气污染等数据,分析空气污染引致人力资本选择性流动,进而带来的城市长期经济增长效应。结果发现,空气污染并没有显著影响城市人口规模变化,但是降低了城市经济增速和增长质量。以PM_(2.5)和SO_(2)为代表的空气污染导致城市大学及以上学历人口显著流出,进而带来城市人均夜间灯光亮度值和GDP增长率的下降。本文进一步基于“两控区”政策,反向论证了环境规制政策能够带来空气质量改善,从而减缓高人力资本的流出,促进经济增长。本文从经验上分析了环境规制、环境质量、经济增长之间的关系,也为中国城市兴衰格局提供了一个基于环境视角的解释。

As an important part of urban quality,environmental quality has increasingly become an important factor affecting the quality of urban development.This paper uses data sets from the Chinese population census,night-time lighting and air pollution satellite remote sensing since 2000 to empirically examine the long-term effects of air pollution on urban economic development.The results of the study indicate that air pollution did not affect the urban population scale,but rather reduced the rate and quality of urban economic growth.The mediating effect test of human capital demonstrates that the air pollution characterised by PM_(2.5) and SO_(2) has led to a significant outflow of educated talent from polluted cities,which in turn led to a decline in the GDP growth rate.Subsequently,a reverse demonstration is made based on the “two-control zone” environmental regulation policy and it is found that under a strict environmental regulation policy,the improvement of air pollution weakens the outflow of human capital.This research not only provides empirical evidence about the relationship between environmental regulation,environmental quality and economic growth,but also a new explanatory environmental perspective on the rise and fall pattern of Chinese cities.