中国自由贸易试验区是否抑制了环境污染——来自中国281个城市的实证研究

Has China’s Pilot Free Trade Zones Suppressed Environmental Pollution?—Empirical Research from 281 Cities in China

加快建设贸易强国,提高对外开放水平,是推进高水平对外开放进而实现高质量发展的重大课题。然而,贸易引致而来的环境问题不容忽视,如何有效防治环境污染,推动绿色发展,成为高质量发展中亟须解决的问题之一。本文以自由贸易试验区作为“准自然实验”,利用2005—2019年中国城市的面板数据,通过双重差分法探究贸易与环境的关系。研究发现:自贸区能够显著抑制片区所在城市的环境污染,该结论在考虑内生性问题以及多种稳健性检验后依然成立;自贸区通过优化地区产业结构、提高地区绿色创新能力以及促进地区经济集聚三个作用渠道来抑制地区环境污染;自贸区对地区环境污染的抑制作用存在地理、行政异质性,中西部城市和副省级以上城市的抑制环境污染效应更显著;自贸区在抑制环境污染方面具有空间溢出效应,能够对邻近地区的环境污染起到显著的遏制作用;在抑制环境污染方面,自贸区与“一带一路”倡议之间存在联动作用。本文为丰富自贸区的政策内涵、实现贸易与环境双赢发展提供了新思路。

Accelerating the construction of a strong trading country and improving the level of opening up to the outside world is a major issue in promoting high-level opening up and achieving high-quality development.However,the environmental problems caused by trade cannot be ignored.How to effectively prevent and control environmental pollution and promote green development has become one of the urgent issues to be solved in high-quality development.This paper takes the China Pilot Free Trade Zone as a“quasi natural experiment”,and uses the panel data of cities above prefecture level in China from 2005 to 2019 to explore the relationship between trade and environment through the double difference method.The research finds that:①the free trade zone can significantly inhibit the environmental pollution of the city where the zone is located,which is still true after considering the endogeneity problem and various the robustness tests;②The free trade zone restrains regional environmental pollution by optimizing regional industrial structure,improving regional green innovation capability and promoting regional economic agglomeration;③The inhibitory effect of free trade zones on regional environmental pollution has geographical and administrative heterogeneity.Compared to eastern cities and ordinary cities,central and western cities and cities above the sub provincial level have more significant inhibitory effects on environmental pollution;④Free trade zones have a spatial spillover effect in suppressing environmental pollution,which can significantly curb environmental pollution in neighboring areas;⑤In terms of curbing environmental pollution,the free trade zone and“the Belt and Road”initiative play an interactive role.The article provides new ideas for enriching the policy connotation of the free trade pilot zone and achieving win-win development of trade and environment.