The influence of heterogeneous environmental regulation on the green development of the mining industry: empirical analysis based on the system GMM and dynamic panel data model

ABSTRACT

The intensity of environmental regulation (ERI) affects the short-term effect of the level of green mining (GML), and which structure determines the long-term mechanism. Based on the panel data from 2001 to 2015, with the dynamic panel model and system GMM estimation method were employed to test the influence of heterogeneous environmental regulation on green mining and its transmission mechanism. The results show that, there is a “U” type nonlinear relationship between the ERI and GML. The direct effect of command-control-based (CAC) and the market incentive-based (MBI) environmental regulation on green development of mining shows the characteristics of inhibition and promotion.  There is a “U” type of indirectly moderating effect between technological innovation and the energy consumption structure on the GML. The technological innovation promotes the green development of the mining industry only after pass the inflection point of MBI, while the CAC plays a significant guiding role in upgrading of the energy consumption structure. There is an inhibition and promotion effect of MBI on the GML in the southeast coastal area, and the CAC is not significantly. Meanwhile, both of the ERI shows no positive effects in the central and western inland region.

KEYWORDS:

• Intensity of Environmental Regulation (ERI)
• green mining
• heterogeneous effects
• dynamic panel data model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Mineral resources and environmental regulation mean that the government regulates and manages the exploration, development, utilization, and protection of mineral resources, and uses mineral resources and the environment as regulatory means to conduct economic and social activities of enterprises, local governments, and other social components. It constrains them to make them more in line with national interests, public goals, and social needs.

2. When you take a differential on both sides of its static model: you obtain: $\frac{dGM{L}_{it}}{ER{I}_{it}}=1+{\beta }_{4}R{D}_{it}+{\beta }_{5}R{D_{it}}^2$. The marginal effect of environmental regulation intensity on the green level of the mining industry depends on the quadratic curve shape of $R{D}_{it}$,or $EC{S}_{it}$, which is its primary term and quadratic coefficient.

3. The southeast coastal areas included 12 provinces and municipalities (autonomous regions), such as Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Liaoning, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan. The central and western inland areas included 19 provinces and municipalities (autonomous regions), including Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. Although there are some differences between the central region and the western region in terms of resource endowment and development, there are still many similarities between the two regions. The 6 central provinces provinces and 13 western provinces (autonomous regions) were merged into the central and western regions. They are quite different from those in the eastern region. This study does not include Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan due to the lack of data.

4. The National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Land and Resources jointly issued the National Mineral Resources Plan (2008–2015) in 2009, which clearly put forward the requirements for the development of “green mining” and established the strategic goal of the pattern of green mines by 2020.

5. Through the test of the relationship between the level of economic development and the level of green mining, we found that the per capita coefficient of the per capita GDP is negative in regards to the level of green mining, and the 2-term coefficient is positive. Since this article has a limited length, we cannot discuss this issue here. Interested readers are encouraged to contact the authors for more information.

Additional information

Funding

The paper is supported by Study and expound the Party's 19th National Spiritual Social Science Special Project "Accelerating the Reform of Ecological Civilization System and Building a Beautiful China" [Grant number: 18VSJ037].