Employment effect of China's environmental regulation: Evidence based on spatial panel data

摘要

This article considers 30 provinces of China as the cross-section subjects, and utilizes the data sample from 2009 to 2015 of these cross-sections to formulate a Spatial Panel Data Durbin Model to analyze the effect of environmental regulation on employment. The result indicates that environmental regulation has negative effect on employment with the consideration of spatial spillover effect, and this adverse effect is not significant mathematically. With the enhance of environmental regulation, the negative impact on employment will decrease accordingly, even may eventually promote job growth, which means there may be a non-linear relationship between them. Specifically, the direct effect of environmental regulation on employment indicates that it is beneficial for job growth whereas the indirect effect illustrate that it is detrimental for employment.