环境规制政策协同对经济高质量发展影响的异质性

Heterogeneity in the impact of environmental regulation policy synergies on high⁃quality economic development

环境资源稀缺性决定了经济增长与环境保护之间的必然矛盾,而环境的公共物品属性决定了环境保护与生态治理应纳入政府规制范畴。该研究以中国30个省份面板数据为样本,构建经济高质量发展指标体系,以变异系数法与熵权法相结合的方式测算经济高质量发展综合指数,利用随机森林算法对模型变量进行筛选,利用对异常值不敏感的惩罚面板分位数回归研究经济高质量发展的环境规制政策协同异质性效应。结果表明,环境规制政策协同对经济高质量发展的影响存在明显异质性。具体而言:①在经济高质量发展水平较低地区(0.1分位点)政策2与政策3的组合协同效果最优;在经济高质量发展水平较高地区3种政策组合的协同效果最优。②政策协同整体上显著促进经济高质量发展,且存在“U”形影响,即随着政策协同度的不断增大,经济高质量发展水平呈“先降后升”趋势。③在经济高质量发展水平较低地区,政策协同的产出弹性值未越过“拐点”,一定程度抑制经济高质量发展,其结论支持“遵循成本说”;然而,经济高质量发展水平较高地区其产出弹性值均越过“拐点”,随着政策协同度的增大,有效促进经济高质量发展,其结论支持“创新补偿说”。因此,为降低地区间的差异,各级政府及相关部门之间应加强合作,不断促进政策间的协同效应,提高政策组合效率,这不仅有利于生态环境改善,还能提高要素生产率和能源利用率,从而促进地区间经济高质量发展。

The scarcity of resources in the environment determines the inevitable conflict between economic growth and environmental protection,and the environment as a public good determines that environmental protection and ecological management should be included in the scope of government regulation.Taking the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces(municipalities and autonomous regions)as the sample,this study first constructed the index system of high-quality economic development with the five major development concepts of‘innovation,coordination,openness,greenness,and sharing’as the guide.Based on the shortcomings of the existing measurement methods in equalizing the weight distribution of indicators,we proposed the combination of the coefficient of variation method with the entropy weight method to measure the comprehensive index of high-quality economic development.Secondly,the random forest algorithm was used to filter the variables based on the importance of model variables.Finally,we empirically investigated the heterogeneity in the impact of environmental regulatory policy synergies on high-quality economic development using penalized panel quantile regressions that fully accounted for the characteristics of data outliers.The results showed that there was significant heterogeneity in the impact of environmental regulation policy synergies on high-quality economic development.Specifically,the result showed that:①The combination of Policy 2 and Policy 3 had the best synergy effect in regions with lower levels of high-quality economic development(0.1 quantile),and the synergistic effect of the three policy combinations was optimal in regions with more developed levels of high-quality economic development.②Policy synergies had a positive impact on high-quality economic development,with a‘U’-shaped change,i.e.as the degree of policy synergies increased,the level of high-quality economic development tended to fall first and then rise.③The output elasticity value of policy synergies did not cross the‘inflection point’in regions with less developed levels of high-quality economic development.This result somewhat inhibited high-quality economic development,supporting the‘cost of compliance’argument.However,the output elasticity values of the better-developed regions crossed the‘inflection point’.The findings supported the‘innovation compensation theory’.Therefore,to reduce inter-regional differences,cooperation between governments at all levels and relevant departments should be strengthened to continuously promote policy synergies and improve the efficiency of policy combinations,which will not only benefit the ecological environment,but also improve factor productivity and energy efficiency,thus promoting quality inter-regional economic development.