MECHANISM ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION ON REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE: A CASE STUDY OF PEARL RIVER DELTA REGION, CHINA

Unreasonable industrial structure and overcapacity have become the constraints of socioeconomic sustainable development, and it is urgent to find new impetus to promote the adjustment of industrial structure. Environmental regulation is an important means to control environmental pollution. While achieving environmental effects, it will also invisibly affect the adjustment of industrial structure. In this study, a model was established to investigate the influence of environmental regulation on regional industrial structure. The model was based on the panel data of 9 cities in the Pearl River Delta region of China from 2015 to 2019. Moreover, the forced effect of environmental regulation on industrial structure adjustment was empirically analyzed. The results showed that both formal environmental regulation and informal environmental regulation have effectively driven the adjustment of industrial structure. The higher the intensity of environmental regulation, the higher the proportion of the service industry in the economy. The economic effects of informal environmental regulation have initially appeared. GDP per capita, industrial scale and urbanization process are positively correlated with the adjustment index of industrial structure, while the degree of opening to the outside world is negatively correlated with industrial structure adjustment. In future, the region should formulate diverse formal environmental regulations and strengthen informal regulatory forces.