The Urbanization–Environmental Pollution Nexus: An Analysis Based on a Spatial Perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the impact of urbanization on environmental pollution by using provincial and municipal panel data from 2004 to 2015 in China. Using the spatial Durbin model, the study finds a notable difference between the impact of urbanization on residential and industrial wastewater and waste gas. Urbanization in China will significantly improve the emissions of residential wastewater and industrial waste gas in local and neighboring provinces. The effective improvement of energy use, or energy efficiency, plays a key role in reducing environmental pollution and can effectively curb the emission of pollutants.

KEYWORDS:

• Urbanization
• environmental pollution
• spatial Durbin model

JEL:

• C31
• C33
• P25
• Q53

Acknowledgments

Prof. Fan Zhang acknowledges the financial support from the General Projects of the National Social Science Fund, China (No. 19BJY225); Prof. Yongtao Shen acknowledges the General Project of Philosophy and Social Science Planning of Guangdong Province (GD20CYJ29).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See LeSage and Pace, 2009, Introduction to Spatial Econometrics, Chapter 6, pp. 155–185.

2. Urbanization seems to contribute a great deal to pollutant emissions. The urbanization index value in this paper is a proportion, and not a percentage; that is, a change of one unit in urbanization means a change of 10% in urbanization. In Tables 3–6, the explanation of the urbanization to pollutant emission coefficient is the same.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the General Projects of the National Social Science Fund, China [19BJY225]; the General Project of Philosophy and Social Science Planning of Guangdong Province [GD20CYJ29].