AUTHOR=Tang Chenghui , Dou Jianmin 

TITLE=The Impact of Heterogeneous Environmental Regulations on Location Choices of Pollution-Intensive Firms in China

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.799449

DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2021.799449

ISSN=2296-665X

ABSTRACT=In the background of globalization, the key issue is how to conduct environmental regulations to prevent the transfer of pollution-intensive industries. Previous studies focused on the transfer of polluting industries and their economic performance from national perspectives, but fewer studies revealed the spatial distribution of pollution-intensive firms and their environmental performance. In order to fill this gap, in this study, the impact of heterogeneous environmental regulations on the location choices of pollution-intensive firms was analyzed, and the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) was tested. The empirical results were as follows: Firstly, pollution-intensive foreign firms were highly concentrated in the eastern developed region and had strong path dependency in China. Secondly, environmental regulations, especially the market-based counterpart, had a significant negative impact on the location of pollution-intensive foreign firms. Thirdly, the spatial distribution of pollution-intensive foreign firms was strongly influenced by new economic and geographic factors such as production costs, market potential, and industrial agglomeration. Fourthly, pollution-intensive foreign firms had significant pollution border effects in developed regions but not in economically less-developed regions due to transportation costs.