Effects and Spatial Spillover of Manufacturing Agglomeration on Carbon Emissions in the Yellow River Basin, China

Abstract

Manufacturing agglomeration is an important manifestation for cities to enhance their competitiveness, and the resource and environmental effects caused by agglomeration have become a hot topic. Based on the relevant data of prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2006 to 2019, this study used a Markov transition matrix to study the characteristics of carbon emission transfer and constructed an SDM model to analyze the effect of manufacturing agglomeration on carbon emissions and spatial spillover; the study drew the following conclusions: carbon emissions and the concentrations of manufacturing industries in the Yellow River Basin are on the rise, with carbon emissions showing a distribution pattern of “downstream > midstream > upstream”. Manufacturing agglomeration has a significant positive influence on carbon emissions, reflecting the necessity for the green transformation of manufacturing agglomeration. Manufacturing agglomeration has a spatial spillover effect on carbon emissions. The direct effect is positive, and the indirect effect is negative. The polarization effect caused by agglomeration weakens the development degree of neighboring areas, which may reflect the technological spillover effect of manufacturing agglomeration on neighboring areas. Manufacturing agglomeration has regional heterogeneity in carbon emissions. Compared with the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin, the effect is more obvious in the upper reaches. The study proposes countermeasures in terms of optimizing the spatial pattern of the manufacturing industry and other aspects to provide references for promoting the transformation development of the manufacturing industry in the Yellow River Basin.