空气污染是否逼迫了生态技术创新？——基于门槛效应检验

Does Air Pollution Force the Innovation of Ecological Technology?—Based on Threshold Effect Test

摘要: 技术创新被认为是解决环境污染与应对气候变化最重要的途径之一。本文根据2004~2016年中国272个地级市的面板数据，对空气污染是否促进了生态技术创新进行实证分析，并且分别将环境规制与经济发展水平作为门槛变量，探讨生态技术创新与空气污染之间的非线性关系。研究结果表明：1) 当期的空气污染对生态技术创新的作用为负，而滞后一期的空气污染对生态技术创新的“逼迫”效应十分显著；2) 在以环境规制为门槛变量的条件下，空气污染与生态技术创新呈现“折线型”关系：随着环境规制的强度的上升，当期空气污染对生态技术创新的抑制作用扩大，而滞后一期的空气污染对生态技术创新的“逼迫”作用减小；3) 在以经济发展水平为门槛变量的条件下，当期的空气污染与生态技术创新呈现“U型”关系，随着经济发展水平的增长，当期空气污染从显著地抑制生态技术创新到不显著，直至促进生态技术创新；而滞后一期的空气污染与生态技术创新呈现“折线型”关系，即滞后一期空气污染对生态技术创新的“逼迫”效应不断增强；因此，政府制定环境规制应当适度，并且需要促进环境规制实现多样化、市场化，减少企业的成本负担，从而使得环境污染的“逼迫”作用发挥的作用最大化，从而尽可能地激励生态技术创新。此外，政府制定环境规制政策还应当因地制宜，不应该实行“一刀切”，需要考虑与地方的实际经济发展现状相结合，推动我国生态文明建设迈上新台阶。

Abstract: Technological innovation is considered to be one of the most important ways to solve environmental pollution and cope with climate change. This paper based on the panel data of 272 prefecture level cities in China from 2004 to 2016 makes an empirical analysis on whether air pollution promotes the innovation of ecological technology, and takes environmental regulation and economic development level as threshold variables to explore the non-linear relationship between the innovation of ecological technology and air pollution. The results show that: 1) The current air pollution has a negative effect on the innovation of ecological technology, while the lagging air pollution has a significant “forcing” effect on the innovation of ecological technology; 2) under the condition of environmental regulation as the threshold variable, the relationship between air pollution and ecological technological innovation shows a “broken line”: with the increase of the intensity of environmental regulation, the inhibition effect of current air pollution on ecological technological innovation increases, while the “forced” effect of lagging one period air pollution on ecological technological innovation decreases; 3) Under the condition of taking the economic de-velopment level as the threshold variable, the current air pollution and ecological technology in-novation show a “U-shaped” relationship. With the growth of economy, the air pollution in the current period first restrains the technological innovation significantly, then has no significant ef-fect, and finally starts to promote the economic growth significantly; and the relationship between the air pollution and the innovation of ecological technology that lags behind the first stage is “broken line”, that is to say, the "forcing" effect of the air pollution that lags behind the first stage on the innovation of ecological technology is continuously enhanced; therefore, the government should formulate environmental regulations appropriately, and it is necessary to promote the di-versification and marketization of environmental regulations, and reduce the cost burden of en-terprises, so as to maximize the role of “coercion” of environmental pollution and encourage the innovation of ecological technology as much as possible. In addition, the government should make environmental regulation policies according to local conditions, not “one size fits all”, which needs to be considered in combination with the actual economic development of the local situation, so as to promote China’s ecological civilization construction to a new level.