Re-Examination of the Relationship between Industrial Agglomeration and Haze Pollution: From the Perspective of the Spatial Moderating Effect of Environmental Regulation

Abstract

This paper uses panel data from 284 Chinese cities from 2004 to 2020 and employs a dynamic spatial panel Durbin model to re-examine the relationship between industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and haze pollution. It further adopts a dynamic spatial moderation effect model to explore the spatial regulatory mechanism of environmental regulation. The results show that both local and neighboring industrial agglomeration have a significant “inverted U-shaped” relationship with local haze pollution, and the scale cumulative optimization effect can only be effectively played after the industrial agglomeration level of the locality and neighboring areas exceeds the inflection point. Local environmental regulation significantly inhibits haze pollution, while neighboring environmental regulation plays a promoting role. The moderating effect of environmental regulation on the relationship between industrial agglomeration and haze pollution shows spatial heterogeneity in the local and neighboring areas. Local environmental regulation has a “U-shaped” non-linear moderating effect while neighboring environmental regulation has a positive linear moderating effect. Therefore, the government should pay attention to the joint effort and coordinated advancement of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation to further reduce urban haze pollution and enhance urban air quality.