Impact of Environmental Regulation Tools on the Economic Growth of China—Threshold Effect Analysis based on Environmental Decentralization

Based on the environmental decentralization system,this essay explores the economic growth effect of the environmental regulation tools and adopts the panel data from 30 Chinese provinces in 2001 to 2012.On the basis of applying the systemic GMM to examine the impact of the environmental regulation tools on the economic growth.The results show that:(1)under the environmental decentralization,the economic promotion effect of the command-and-control and the public-participatory regulation tools shifts from negative to positive,while that of the market-incentive regulation tools shifts from positive to negative. (2)the impact of these three kinds of environmental regulation tools on economic growth are all of dual threshold effects,and positive economic growth effect can only be achieved when the environmental decentralization exceeds the specific threshold. (3)there are 15 provinces with the data at the reasonable level for command-and-control regulation tools,and 8 provinces at the reasonable level for the market-incentive and the public-participatory regulation tolls.Therefore,the government shall reasonably optimize the combination of regulation tools and deepen the structure of powers in the reform environment,so as to achieve the environmental protection and harmonious economic growth.