earticle

영어

Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policies, Chinese economy has rapidly advanced towards the second-largest in the world. However, at the same time of rapid economic development, environmental pollution, excessive energy consumption and other problems have also become increasingly prominent. Environmental pollution, in particular, contributes approximately 8-15% of China's economic losses. Shandong, a northern Chinese province with a heavy industrial presence, is also grappling with severe environmental pollution challenges. To solve the problems, Shandong has to get rid of the "high energy consumption, high pollution, high emissions and low efficiency" type of economic development mode, then turn to the stage of high-quality economic development. In this process, how to achieve the coordinated development between the improvement of the quality of economic development and environmental improvement has become the focus of attention of all sectors of society. Bring environmental regulation into force is one of the important means to improve environmental problems. Whether the role of environmental regulation contributes to the improvement of the quality of economic development, and how environmental regulation affects the quality of economic development are the key research directions in the field of environmental economics at present. Therefore, this study takes Shandong Province of China as the research object, attempting to answer the above questions through theoretical research and empirical analysis. To calculate the comprehensive index of economic development quality and environmental regulation, the statistical index data of Shandong Province from 1994 to 2019 is used by means of the entropy weight method. Besides, an empirical model was also established in order to verify the impact and internal mechanism of environmental regulation on the economic development quality of Shandong Province. The research shows that there exists a U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and the quality of economic development in Shandong Province, that is, strengthening environmental regulation at the beginning will inhibit the quality of economic development in Shandong Province, but when the intensity of environmental regulation is increased to a certain extent, environmental regulation will promote its improvement, instead. In addition, the core conclusion still holds after the explanatory variable environmental regulation was replaced. The transmission mechanism analysis shows that environmental regulation can improve the quality of economic development in Shandong Province through green technology innovation effect, industrial upgrading effect and productivity effect, but among of which the green technology innovation effect is relatively more significant. Therefore, it is suggested that the government departments of Shandong Province should further improve the environmental regulation policy, rationally formulate the intensity of environmental regulation; it should improve the independent innovation system, guide the upgrading of industrial structure, raise production efficiency, and give full play to the effect of environmental regulation in promoting the quality improvement of economic development.