Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effect of Energy-Saving Regulations on the Location of Manufacturing

本博士论文研究项目将考察区域节能监管差异对中国制造业区位和增长的影响。长期以来，地理学家和经济学家一直关注由不同司法管辖区的环境法规引起的产业再分配问题，即污染避风港假说。严格的环境监管可能会增加污染企业的减排成本，降低其竞争力，并将其转移到监管宽松的地区。这一过程使得监管宽松的地区污染更严重，监管严格的地区失业。利用2002年至2010年中国行业层面和企业层面的面板数据，该博士生将研究省际节能监管差异是否影响制造业的区位。分析将集中在三个方面：两位数的行业和企业层面的就业，企业层面的区位选择，以及企业层面的增长。计量经济学分析将适用于所有省份的总体政策效果，并仅限于各省边界的县。后一种分析应有助于确定边境地区的制造活动是否有更突然的变化，并确定跨境法规变化所造成的变化的地理范围的差异。广义差中差模型、条件logit模型和多级模型将用于估计。本研究项目将促进对污染避风港假说和环境法规成本的基本认识。它将通过使用多种估计方法，采用具有相同样本框架的行业总量和公司层面的数据，确定衡量产业迁移的共同偏差。它将比较命令和控制政策与基于市场的政策的效果，将两者都纳入估计。通过综合数据集和估算方法，该项目将衡量政策引发的产业转移和替代政策方法的相对强度。项目研究结果将揭示中国不同地区未来的节能、能源消耗和自然资源消耗情况。这些发现应该有助于改善当前的政策框架，许多国家的政府可以利用这些框架在减少不利影响的情况下实现能源效率目标。在中国这样的国家，分散监管的政策含义与国际气候变化政策的影响高度相关，特别是对加入国际温室气体减排承诺的国家来说，碳泄漏和竞争力丧失问题。作为博士论文研究进步奖，该项目将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个独立的研究生涯。

This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the effect of regulatory differences in regional energy savings on the location and growth of manufacturing industries in China. The concern for industrial redistribution induced by different environmental regulations across jurisdictions, namely the pollution-haven hypothesis, has long interested geographers and economists. A stricter environmental regulation may increase polluting firms' abatement costs, reduce their competitiveness, and shift them to areas with laxer regulations. This process makes areas with laxer regulations suffer from more pollution, and areas with stricter regulations lose jobs. Using industry-level and firm-level panel data from 2002 to 2010 in China, the doctoral student will investigate whether inter-provincial regulatory differences in energy saving affected the location of manufacturing industries. The analysis will focus on three aspects: two-digit industry-level and firm-level employment, firm-level location choice, and firm-level growth. The econometric analyses will be applied to all provinces for aggregate policy effects and restrictively to counties along provincial borders. The latter analyses should help identify whether there are more abrupt changes in manufacturing activities in border areas and identify differences in the geographical scope of the changes that result from a regulation change across borders. Generalized difference-in-differences models, conditional logit models, and multi-level models will be used for estimation.This research project will advance basic knowledge about the pollution-haven hypothesis and the cost of environmental regulations. It will identify common biases in measuring industry relocation by employing both industry-aggregate and firm-level data with the same sample frame using multiple estimation methods. It will compare the effect of a command-and-control policy with that of a market-based one by incorporating both in the estimation. With comprehensive datasets and estimation methods, the project will measure policy-induced industrial relocation and the relative strength of alternative policy approaches. Project findings will shed light on future energy saving, energy consumption, and natural resource consumption in different areas in China. The findings should help improve the current policy frameworks that governments in many nations can use to meet energy-efficiency targets with fewer adverse impacts. The policy implications of the decentralized regulation in nations like China are highly relevant to the impacts of international climate change policies, especially the issues of carbon leakage and loss of competitiveness for countries that joined international commitments of greenhouse gas reduction. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.